Abstract

How to create abstract photos using chocolate wrappers – Watch on YouTube

One thing that’s always abundant around Christmas time is chocolate. They come in all kinds of unique and interesting-looking packaging. In this article, we’re going to look at how to create abstract photos using these left over chocolate wrappers.

How to create abstract photos using chocolate wrappers

Confectionary companies like to make their products look distinct from the competition. Most have interesting wrapping, especially chocolates to give them that premium feel. Quality Street in particular are known for their wrapping, with each flavor wrapped differently in foil and translucent plastic.

With the left over wrapping from a simple box of chocolates, we can have fun with our macro photography and create some cool abstract images.

Photography Setup

There’s no right or wrong way to do this, that’s the beauty of abstract photography. You can approach it in any way you like to capture some interesting images.

However, using a macro lens and some lighting will certainly make your images stand out more. We also recommend shooting on a tripod so you can more easily manipulate the wrappers in front of the camera.

Shooting on a tabletop with a tripod also has the advantage of reducing camera shake to near zero. With complex reflections like we have with the wrappers, this is particularly important. You would easily be able to see any camera shake in the specular highlights as they would be elongated and shakey.

Even with a tripod, we recommend trying to shoot above 1/60th of a second shutter speed. You ISO can be set to whatever you need, but keeping it as low as possible is always best.

As for the aperture, we are going to want to adjust this to change our results.

Aperture & Focus

Aperture affects Depth of Field, that’s how much of your image is in focus at once. You will want to play around with your aperture to change how “soft” your image looks. The wider your aperture (Smaller F-number) the less of your wrapper will be in focus at once.

This is great for making your images less obvious than they are wrappers. A wider aperture will also affect bokeh. Bokeh is the little out-of-focus balls of light that appear in the background of your images. These will be larger or smaller based on several factors, the main one being depth of field.

There’s also the question of where to focus. With an abstract photo like this, there’s not going to be an obvious point in your image that draws the eye. You will have to find it by “searching” through your scene to find a look that works.

Alternate between focusing and moving your wrappers around to find shapes and patterns in the image that work.

Lighting

The final key to the puzzle of how to create abstract photos with our chocolate wrappers, is lighting. You can probably get results like these shooting with available light, or next to a window. However, things get far more interesting when you can take control of your lighting.

We used the flexible lighting arms of the Adaptalux Studio to change the colour and direction of the light hitting our subject. Being able to place the light where you want it to be is a game changer!

Your choice of lighting affects all of the previously mentioned points. The bokeh you get will be dependent on how your light reflects off the foil and plastic. Your available exposure settings will be determined by how much light you can get onto your subject.

We highly recommend using some kind of external light source for a shoot like this. Take a look at the options right here!

Don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more macro photography tutorials, ideas and inspiration!