About.

Hi, I’m Hikaru. I work as a London food photographer. I’m passionate about connecting brands and restaurants to their audience.

My food photography is shot with a focus on real food, and producing vibrant scenes, to tell relevant and authentic brand stories.

Originally from the East Sussex market town of Lewes, I grew up above my family’s restaurant. From an early age - I’d stand on a stool in the kitchen and help my Dad prep dishes, and go on drives across the county - learning about local ingredients and discovering my spark for food; later developing into hosting my own popular supper clubs.

Now working as a London food photographer - I’m endlessly passionate about producing vibrant and contemporary scenes that connect your brand and product to your audience in your unique voice.

My creative approach offers a seamless service from briefing, through production and delivery of your food photography; this is done by making use of my experience, refined workflows and team of stylists to create meaningful imagery.

Captured in London studios and at locations across the UK - you can find my work frequently used for brand campaign imagery, recipe cards, packaging, and OOH advertising.

Hikaru Funnell About page portrait

Testimonials.

“Worked with Hikaru on a recent shoot and could not recommend him enough. Extremely easy to work with and completely brings the brief given to him to life.”
— Olivia @ VITHIT
“Hikaru is hands down one of my favourite photographers to work with. He is an absolute pro at what he does, always supplying me with the best content quickly and I always enjoy the day shooting together! Highly recommend!”
— Lois @ Strand Palace
“Shot with Hikaru on a for an upcoming product launch, and I would recommend him to anyone!
The level of preparation he went to to ensure that everything was ready for the day was top notch. The outcome of the images are epic!”
— Naomi @ TRIBE Nutrition
“Hikaru was lovely to work with - brought a great energy to the shoot and of course the photos turned out gorgeous!”
— Caroline @ Lee Kum Kee
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Photography Services.

Food


Photography.

My passion for amazing food drives me to produce authentic and vibrant food photography that connects brands with their audience in their voice.

This is achieved through my streamlined approach to brief treatments; all starting with getting to know your brand, your audience and the type of aspirational food photography that resonates with them. This is used to fuel our creative decision-making and art direction.

At the heart of this is real food, and bespoke set builds that use an intentional balance of tones, textures, props and bespoke set builds to tell each brand’s unique story.

Captured in London studios and at locations across the UK - you can find my work frequently used for brand campaign imagery, recipe cards, packaging, and OOH advertising.

Commercial Food Photography.

My commercial food photography focuses on producing vibrant imagery that pairs your product with real food to tell your brand story authentically.

My work uses intentional collections, tones, textures and props to create contemporary and aspirational scenes.

My style is made through large directional studio lighting, and shaping to create form and contrast within our scenes and onto the subject - either in my playful style, or more aspirationally led in lifestyle scenes that replicate a real lived in space.

Using this creative focus - I can confidently bring your vision to life through well-thought-out and engaging set builds - all helping to help produce vibrant commercial food photography that clearly tells your brand’s story.

Restaurant Photography.

Growing up above my family’s restaurant in the East Sussex countryside, I have a deep-rooted passion for amazing ingredients, and interesting food stories.

At the heart of my restaurant photography, I really enjoy teaming up with chefs to capture contemporary and vibrant food photography that showcases their food and the unique feeling of their restaurant though imagery that makes a contextual use of the space.

In addition to impactful food photography, is creating nattative imagery to add depth to your brand story.

These can be reporage content of the chefs cooking in the kitchen, plating up at the pass, food photography of the dishes being finished at the table - or captured as contextual portraits within the restaurant.

Art Direction.

In addition to being a food photographer, I’m driven by my passion for art direction, and producing sets that tell your brand story.

My process has been streamlined to get us smoothly from our initial discovery call, all the way through to the delivery your of food photography.

From smaller to large scale food photography and commercial food photography shoots, the same level of care is put into each clien’t treatment.

Working from our initial brief and breaking down your core brand messaging - I lead the brief treatments - using a more visually led approach to explore your audience’s aspirations keeping that at the foundation of our creative decision-making for your food photography.. 

Using our visual brand toolkit and well-considered colour pallets to pool from - I can work to produce strong sets via prop rentals, background hire, and producing custom-built backgrounds to stand out.

Looking for more information? Take a look at my FAQs.

Production Process.

  • To kickstart your project, I love to begin by getting to know your brand via a tailored discovery form.

    Here, I can learn about your brand, products, content goals, and your audience's aspirations.

    This information is used to produce a bespoke quote & food photography package.

  • Once your 50% booking deposit has been paid - I will confirm your booking our session date(s) are locked into my diary.

    From here, I can start all of the creative planning that goes into your food photography shoot.

  • At the same time as your booking is confirmed in my diary - I will share a collaborative session deck.

    It will contain a shoot overview, mood boards, confirmed shot types, art direction, and your shot list.

    I'll then ask you to add to this, or sign it off, and ship your stock to me.

    Now the fun part starts, and I will use our session deck to brief my food stylist, and to guide my sourcing of props, backgrounds and the making of your your set builds.

  • The shoot is where we bring all of the elements together to bring your visuals to life and capture them during our session.

    This is my favourite part, and I love to work with my stylist to create authentic brand scenes with our props, set builds and amazing food with your products.

  • The final step in the creative production process is post-production, adding a level of final polish to the images.

    The post-production process includes image selection, grading, light re-touching, and cropping to your specification.

    Edited imagery is delivered 72-hours* after the session wrap; getting you your new food photography content ready to use, as quickly as possible.

    * Monday to Friday, excl UK holidays

 
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