Photographer reveals secret ‘unseen’ Michael Jackson pics (update)

Hundreds of previously ?unseen? images of pop legend Michael Jackson have been unearthed.

Photographer Arno Bani captured the 700 pictures on a ?secret photo shoot?, after Jackson contacted the Frenchman in July 1999.

But the photos were ‘bypassed’ by Jackson?s record company for the cover of an album in 2001 and so have never appeared before, according to the publishers of a book containing the pictures.

?Nothing of this extraordinary cache of images has ever been seen by the public ? until now,? said a spokesman for Thames & Hudson.

The 208-page book will be published in November, ahead of an auction of the photographs due to take place in Paris in December.

Jackson, who died in 2009, is said to have first noticed Bani?s work in the fashion pages of The Sunday Times and reportedly then ?summoned? the 23-year-old photographer for a photo shoot.

Bani, who is self-taught, first took up photography as a ?visual art? aged 18.

Michael Jackson: The Auction will be published by Thames & Hudson on 15 November, priced £15.95.

Last year AP revealed rare private photos of the star and his family.