.Stephen Eckel
This politician admitted with certitude that he took these shots.
An upstate county legislator has yanked a pair of arty nude pictures of himself off his Web site after opponents tipped off a local TV station — so, unlike former Rep. Anthony Weiner, he has at least avoided weeks of obfuscation about who took them and why.
Democrat Stephen Eckel, whose district includes parts of Rochester, took the shots in 2000 while pursuing a master’s degree at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester.
The full-frontal pictures remained on his Web portfolio until Friday, when a TV reporter questioned him about them.
A GOP activist on the Monroe County Republican Committee alerted TV station WHAM to the Web page and the nude pics of Eckel, who is up for re-election on Tuesday.
Eckel said he took the pictures off the Web because he didn’t want the campaign focused on his junk. He’s now trying to turn the issue against his opponents.
“They have to resort to these lowdown, slimy tricks,” he told The Post. “This is just a low attack on me to put my stuff from an artistic portfolio to be used to smear me.
“My integrity as a photographer and as an artist is strong and powerful, and my integrity as a county legislator is strong and powerful.”
GOP candidate Tony Micciche said the pictures demonstrate that Eckel isn’t fit to represent Rochester.
“How do you trust someone who posts naked pictures of himself on the Internet?” Micciche told The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
“He’s an elected official. He should be held to a higher standard.”
Eckel, who has taught photography at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, SUNY Brockport and the University of Rochester, is married with three kids.
The unwanted attention isn’t all bad for Eckel: Two hours after the WHAM story aired, his site got 20,000 hits — way up from its average of 20 a month.
“It was difficult to find,” he said.With AP