A Polish photographer has been criticised for using a half-naked model in a photo shoot at a Jewish cemetery.

Photographer Lukasz Szczygielski asked a topless model wearing a necklace with a cross to pose against headstones in an attempt to bring attention to the neglected cemetery in Checiny.

“The cemetery is forgotten,” he told Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

Piotr Kadlcik, president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities, said: “One can draw attention to the Jewish cemetery in a number of other, far less shocking ways.”

Krzysztof Bielawski, of the History of Polish Jews Museum, told the local television station TVP Kielce: “I would prefer that this man clean up the cemetery rather than doing a naked session there.”

Mr Szcygielski apoligised for the photo shoot. “If it offended anyone, I deeply apologise,” he told TVP Kielce, “this was not the intention of the session.”