Scarpati on Etsy

Most top music photographers tend to shy away from the public eye, and Scarpati is no exception. Over the three decades that he’s been creating iconic images for everyone from Jane’s Addiction to Kenny Rogers, he has only granted a handful of interviews.

So it’s especially interesting to see Scarpati finally stepping out of the shadows and becoming more visible online via his personal Etsy shop.

Scarpati’s lens has chronicled a staggering range of rock, metal and punk acts including Poison, Circle Jerks, Social Distortion and Rush. His work has been cited by the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, PDN, and more. His photos of the band Fishbone are in the Smithsonian Institute’s permanent collection. He’s been called the house photographer of the Sunset Strip.

Now he’s offering unprecedented access to museum-quality art prints of select images, along with lovingly restored movie lights from Hollywood’s golden age.

To describe this shop as one-of-a-kind would be an understatement.

Looking through the prints available, it’s clear this project is a labor of love. Large-format archival prints, and museum-quality canvas, elevate the works to a level rarely seen in the genre. Clearly, the intent was to make each one a true statement piece.

And the movie lights? Apparently even a jet-setting photographer needs a hobby. Scarpati has taken to scouring old Hollywood studio supply warehouses in search of restoration-worthy examples. He tends to favor lights by famed makers like Bardwell & McAlister and Mole Richardson. Made between the 1920s and 1940’s, each is a one-of-a-kind original, complete with vintage stand or tripod. They exude the sort of patina that can’t be matched by cheaply mass-produced repros. Yet ironically, the lights in his Etsy shop actually cost less than the replicas available in upscale malls.

How did all of this come together?

As the photographer himself explains, he wanted to be a painter. He wanted to be a rock star. He ended up being neither – and both. Scarpati, whose images have become some of the most enduring icons of metal, rock and punk, was raised in New Jersey, came of age in San Diego, gained notoriety in Los Angeles, and now calls Nashville home.

Success often comes in waves, and clearly the surf’s up for this beach-loving lens junkie. He’s shot epic album covers for country megadiva Lee Ann Womack, as well as the pinker-than-pink packaging adorning the New York Dolls’ critically-acclaimed comeback album. Apple even chose the Dolls cover to feature in an ad campaign promoting hot new iPod colors.

Then there was that call from a little place back east known as the Smithsonian. As a result, a series of images culled from Scarpati’s first shoot with the band Fishbone is now part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (to be completed in 2015).

The TV blockbuster Nashville recently used large-format prints from Scarpati’s Eyes Wide Open compilation to adorn the walls of a recording studio set.

Scarpati’s name was again thrust into the limelight recently when renegade indie record label captain and obsessive art collector John Edward Mermis, a.k.a. Long Gone John, acquired a large-format silkscreen of a classic 1984 Scarpati photograph as his birthday present to himself.

Mermis has amassed a collection of art and pop ephemera rumored to be worth in the millions. His label, Sympathy for the Record Industry, has released recordings by hundreds of bands from all over the world. These include early efforts by the White Stripes, Courtney Love and Redd Kross. Clearly, Mermis has a keen ear (and eye) for quality. It’s not surprising he’s focused in on Scarpati’s work.

Find Scarpati on Etsy here.