Just when Robert Pattinson thought he'd left his modelling days behind him now that he is a fully-fledged Hollywood heartthrob, vintage snaps of the British actor have emerged online.

The Twilight star posed for some sexy black and white snaps in 2003 for a spread that appeared in the South China Morning Post magazine.

And the shoot's photographer is now dishing on what it was like to work with a teenage Rob.

"He was painfully shy and incredibly polite," John-Paul Pietrus tells Life & Style.

"He was a bit nervous too because I had him in some pictures with a girl. The shoot was based on swimwear from the 1930s.

"He had his shirt off, so some skin might have made him nervous."

Rob has spoken previously of his time as a teenage model, revealing that it helped him "learn to take rejection in [his] stride."

See Rob at the London premiere of Twilight below