Hello! I’m Deborah Mercy a photographer living in Ketchikan, Alaska. Welcome to my gallery.

In 1976 after working in Southeast Alaska on a salmon purse seine boat, I purchased my first SLR camera. Fresh out of college, with a BFA in drawing and painting, I thought a camera would be a great tool to compile reference material for my art. But I quickly discovered it was so much more and I wanted to learn more about it.

What followed was more years of commercial fishing in Alaska; learning more about photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California; then moving to Anchorage, Alaska looking for work opportunities in a state that had captured my imagination.

In Anchorage, I began a commercial photography business working for a wide variety of clients. The work was much like commercial fishing, sometimes very good and sometimes not so good. The local NBC station hired me part time working weekends at night in the control room. While there the news department discovered I was a photographer and asked me to shoot video for some news stories. Several months later I was no longer shooting the stories but in front of the camera working as a broadcast reporter full time, then moving on to produce a television magazine program at another station.

Six years later I took a break from television and headed to Bristol Bay to commercial fish on a driftnet boat. Upon returning to Anchorage I again worked as a freelance photographer but added video to my resume. A year later I was offered a job with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Marine Advisory Program writing news stories about the Alaska commercial fishing industry, shooting photos and creating video programs. 

I have been so fortunate to travel throughout much of Alaska. The locations and people have shared so much with me. 

In 2016 I retired from the university and moved to Ketchikan. I am pursuing my passion in this beautiful part of the world; a passion that allows me to create art in this temperate rainforest, where the light, colors and shapes continually change. I hope that you enjoy my photos and that they convey some of the specialness of Alaska as well as other areas where I have traveled.