Vacuum packed love: Photographer wraps couples in plastic for bizarre pictures

A Japanese photographer has ensured a couple's love remains fresh - by snapping them in vacuum packs.

Haruhiko Kawaguchi, who goes by the alias Photographer Hal, has pictured dozens of couples contorted in bizarre shapes while tightly wrapped in plastic.

The Tokyo-based photographer finds couples with interesting or an unusual appearance for his images.

He said: 'I tell them that they need to hold their breath for about 10 seconds when I activate the pump to suck out the air, and then I have to rush to get the snap before freeing them by pumping air back into the polythene.

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'Sometimes people do panic but it seems to be a problem more from men than women. I even had one guy panic so badly he wet himself.'

His work has become so renowned in the Japanese capital that now he finds it easier to persuade couples to pose for him.

He said: 'I don't care about their backgrounds, I have photographed musicians, dancers, strippers, labourers, restaurant and bar managers, photographers, businessmen and women, and the unsettled and unemployed. All are welcome.'

He added: 'My work explores the idea of love. I like to vacuum pack my subjects because it's indicative of freshness and preservation, but it also represents the closeness and fullness of love and its magnetic power to being people together.'

After graduating from university he joined an advertising production company in his hometown of Tokyo where he learned photography skills and where he learned to love photographing people.

His photographic series, which combines the idea of love with the packaging more commonly used in the meat section at the local supermarket, has led to him calling his project ‘Flesh Love’, and the series is now available in a book compilation and an ipad app.