Some couples try all kinds of romantic tricks to keep their love alive, but Japanese photographer Haruhiko Kawaguchi takes a more literal approach – he wraps people in plastic, sucks out the air and takes photos of their distorted bodies.

These bizarre images of people huddled together in weird positions in vacuumed plastic wrap may look like stills from a a sado-masochistic practice, but they are Haruhiko Kawaguchi's way of showing and preserving the love between two people.

The idea for his project, Flesh Love, is pretty straightforward. Two people, usually couples, are “packaged” in a 100 by 150 by 74 centimeter plastic bag the artist buys off of the Internet. After carefully arranging their body parts so he can get the best shot, Kawaguchi uses a vacuum cleaner to suck out all the air and make the subjects look like a pack of packaged meat you buy at the supermarket. It takes about 10 to 20 seconds for him to take the photographs, during which time the shrink wrapped couple has to endure the pressure and lack of air, but it's all in the name of love.

Surprisingly and thankfully, no one has been harmed!