Nirvana has two sets of famous underwater pool photos taken by the same photographer Kirk Weddle on two separate occasion at two different pools. The most famous being the cover photo to Nirvana “Nevermind” album featuring a baby underwater reaching for a dollar bill on a fish hook taken in July of 1991.
This photo was taken at the recreation pool (on the right) at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena, California.
The other set of Nirvana pool photos taken by Weddle in November of 1991, feature Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Kurt Cobain frolicking in a different pool and underwater action shots with their instruments.
These photos were taken at what Weddle described to feelnumb.com as ” a piece of shit little pool we used to use for scuba classes.” Here’s a photo Weddle e-mailed me of the shoot in order to find the exact location of where the pool used to be.
The pool was located at 12435 Chandler Blvd. in North Hollywood, California. The pool is gone and the location is now a Jewish Temple. Here is the same angle as the photo above from google street view from almost where the pool would have been. You can see the Galaxy Car Wash sign and the apartment building on the corner of Chandler & Whitsett Ave.
According to Weddle the call time for the photo shoot was 10:00am and Cobain showed up a few hours late and tired, he reflected,
“The shoot was a headache; bad weather, bad swimming pool, cloudy water. Kurt was a couple hours late and then went right to sleep at the side of the pool, and nobody wanted to wake him up”.
The photos from this session are readily available and have been used for posters and press…
The shots were also extensively used for the Nirvana Nevermind 20th Anniversary Release.
Thanks to Photographer Kirk Weddle for allowing me to ask him about the photo shoot and for his great work with Nirvana. You can check out his work here. www.kirkweddle.com
