Boston The seven Bain Capital founders believed they were so destined to make millions that the young men posed for a photo on the grand marble staircase of Bostons Copley Place with $10 and $20 bills popping out of their shirt collars, tucked behind their eyeglasses and clutched in their teeth.

Their confidence was warranted. One went on to run an airline, another to buy a basketball team, and another to oversee two health-care companies and build custom roadsters.

Their leader, Mitt Romney, went on to become governor of Massachusetts and this years likely Republican presidential nominee.

At the 1984 photo shoot, Romney and his partners were celebrating not only their new company but also the ethos of their era. They had just given up their jobs as consultants at Bain & Co. to start Bain Capital with one overarching goal: to create wealth. They were, to use a favorite Romneyism, dreamers.

Nearly three decades later, the black-and-white snapshot captures a moment when Romney was about to become wildly successful in business, giving him the resources and a critical credential for entering national politics.

Yet the photo also embodies one of Romneys challenges as a candidate: his wealth.

President Obama has seized upon his challengers position at the apex of American capitalism to portray him as elite and out of touch.

Were the poster children for class warfare now, said Geoffrey S. Rehnert, one of the seven partners in the photograph. Thats something I never anticipated. Rehnert and other partners said they are unhappy about the politicization of the image. One of Romneys mentors called the shot tacky and inappropriate.

The cocky assurance that Romney and his buddies displayed in the photo belied their youth and inexperience. Romney, then 36, was a success by any measure. He had risen through the Bain ranks quickly, and he was earning a good living and raising five sons.

Running Bain Capital was the biggest challenge yet in his career, and he approached it cautiously and gradually, with the same careful evaluation and reliance on analytics that would characterize his political campaigns and term as governor.

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1984 Bain Capital money photo captured Romney on eve of major success