Arno Bani is releasing a book of rare pictures of Michael Jackson captured in 1999.

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.