Where does chocolate come from? Award-winning photographer Daniel Lorenzetti knows.

His ongoing project, "The Birth of Chocolate," opened in Chicago's Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum May 7 featuring his photographs and text by Linda Rice Lorenzetti, his wife.

The exhibition is based on the couple's travels to cacao-growing regions around the world. The project was developed during the Lorenzettis' appointment as Explorers-in-Residence at the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum.

So far, the pair has traveled to eight cacao-growing countries to document the creation of chocolate from seed to bar, with a goal of extending the experience of chocolate lovers by providing a deeper understanding of the many people involved in creating those confections.

From the exhibition – “Chocolate comes from a cacao bean.  That bean – harvested from trees nourished by rich, equatorial soils around the world – will pass through many hands and many lives before becoming the final confection.  Those are the hands of family farmers, migrant pickers, hired laborers, truck drivers and countless others.  They are the people who make possible all the chocolate you eat.”

"The Birth of Chocolate" will be on display through Sept. 18 at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, Chicago, IL.

For more information contact the Museum or The Image Expedition at www.imageexpedition.com or birthofchocolate@gmail.com.