Upstate pol pulls nude photos from website

ROCHESTER -- A Monroe County legislator who posed nude for a photography project while getting a fine arts degree pulled the pictures from his website Friday after Republican opponents pointed them out to a local TV station.

Democrat Stephen Eckel said he took the self-portraits in 2000 when he was a student at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester. At the time he was working toward a master's degree at The College at Brockport.

Eckel told The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in an interview published Saturday that he has included the photos for years in a portfolio posted online to showcase his work as a professional photographer. He also teaches photography classes.

Until now, nobody had seemed to notice the artsy, sepia-toned shots. They weren't an issue when he was appointed to the county legislature in 2005, or in two subsequent elections.

But Eckel, 46, of Rochester, abruptly yanked them Friday after being questioned by a reporter at WHAM-TV, who had gotten a tip from the Monroe County Republican Committee. He said he didn't want the photographs to distract from the issues in his re-election campaign.