Spencer Elden (Photo : Facebook)
If it was all up to Spencer Elden, he was willing to swim again naked, just like he did 25 years ago, to mark the silver anniversary of Nirvana’s hit 1991 album “Nevermind.”
However, the photographer, John Chapple, dissuaded Elden from doing it, so he ended up wearing swim shorts for the underwater shot, reported Essential. The album sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. Among the songs in the iconic album are “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are.”
Elden, now an artist living in Los Angeles, was four months old when he did the photo shoot. All it took to photograph him as a chubby baby was 15 seconds. His parents, who were approached by photographer Kirk Weddle for an album cover by an unknown group, Nirvana, were paid $200.
Before shooting Elden as a baby, Weddle tried taking pictures of babies at an infant swimming class. However, none of the images satisfied the photographer. The money and fishing hook were not in the water when Weddle took the shot, he just added it later.
When he was young, Elden admitted he found it strange that the photo was so famous. “Looking back, it feels kind of stupid doing interviews about it, because I had nothing to do with it but a lot to do with it all the same time,” Elden shared with Time magazine.
He even attempted to file a lawsuit against Geffen Records for using his naked image, but he failed. “[When] I go to a baseball game and think about it: ‘Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis,’ I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked,” said Elden.
It is the third time that Elden did the shot. The first recreation was in 2006 to mark the photo’s 15th anniversary. The 25th anniversary shot was taken at The Rose Bowl Aquatic Center’s lap pool in Pasadena. Chappel paid Elden $200 to repeat the shot the second time, reported New York Post.
