A picture's worth $500,000 to one French model - because it's a topless picture renowned photographer Peter Beard took of her when she was 17 and she's suing him for that amount.
Fayel Tall says in a lawsuit filed in federal court that she was damaged irreparably when she discovered the photograph was for sale and being shown poster size in the Time Is Always Now gallery in Manhattan, according to the New York Post.
The gallery's owner, Peter Tunney, tells the paper it's Beard who's being taken advantage of in this case. "Now that he's getting famous, the rats are coming out of the woodwork," Tunney said.
Tall says in court papers she met Beard, known for shooting wildlife, through a mutual friend in 1987. He asked her to pose for him, but she says she never signed a release for him to use the over 200 photographs for which she posed during the shoot in Kenya.
Tunney says Beard never asks any of his models - including his own famed discovery, Iman - to sign releases, and none have ever complained. "She knew about it and was happy about it," Tunney tells the Post of Tall. "It's the single best picture of her ever taken." He also says he showed the poster to help her stalled career but took it down at her request, the paper says.
