Merz tries to create atmospheres with his photos, sometimes exotic and fantasy-like, sometimes familiar scenes of everyday life. He captures and evokes emotion, telling little stories with each click of the shutter. There is a mood of intimacy in his photos, where the nudity of the models is natural, and is secondary, really, to the rest of the story being told by the photos. Merz postulates that when the models he photographs are nude, their true selves emerge. There is no clothing, no costume, no artifice to hide behind. The look in their eyes is genuine, their expressions a bit stronger, and this authenticity is one of the things that compels him to shoot fine art nudes.