Currently lives in Rochester, New York. Since 1980 he has been associate professor of art at the University of Rochester. Mertin received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1974 and National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1976 and 1978. Solo exhibitions of his work include 1984: Rochester, Hartnett Gallery of the University of Rochester, and Roger Mertin: 15 October–30 November, 1985, Robert B. Menschel Photography, Syracuse University, New York (both in 1985).

Merry A. Foresta, Stephen Jay Gould, and Karal Ann Marling Between Home and Heaven: Contemporary American Landscape Photography (Washington, D.C. and Albuquerque, New Mexico: The National Museum of American Art in association with the University of New Mexico Press, 1992)