The photographer who took the picture of French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozi posing naked to be auctioned next month has thousands more images of the ex-model

   GENEVA, March 27, 2008 - The photographer who took the picture of
French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozi posing naked to be auctioned next month
has thousands more images of the ex-model, including some much more explicit, he told the Swiss media Wednesday.
   Several British newspapers published the black-and-white full-frontal nude
shot of Bruni-Sarkozy as she and President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Britain
for a two-day state visit.
   The picture, taken in 1993 and to be auctioned at Christie's in New York
next month, is expected to fetch around 4,000 dollars (2,544 euros).
   "I have other nude photographs of Carla far more explicit, but I would
never sell them," Swiss photographer Michel Comte was quoted as saying in the daily Le Matin.
   Comte said he had taken thousands of photos of Bruni in the ten years they
worked together, and the nude being auctioned was taken at the end of a
session for Italian Vogue magazine.
   Comte said he had no idea how the photo had ended up at auction -- "I must
have given it to someone as a gift," he said.
   The photographer said he thought the 4,000 dollar auction estimate "a bit
on the low side", and said the Sun newspaper in Britain had offered him more
than a million pounds for a photograph of an unspecified celebrity.
   "I refused. I'm not in it for the money. That's my principle," he said.
   Christie's April 10 auction will include works by Helmut Newton, Herb
Ritts, Richard Avedon and Leni Riefenstahl, and include other famous models
such as Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell.

AFP