Appetite before artifice
The image can be composed and beautiful without making the food feel untouchable.
Clara Kapelembe Bwali
The beginning
Black Garlic began with a simple frustration: local products and local food were too often represented by images that had no relationship to the people actually cooking and eating them. Clara wanted to make food pictures that felt truthful to place—and still met the standard of the world’s best food media.
She started sharing recipes in 2016 under Clara’s Kitchen. By 2020, the work had grown into a full-time creative practice and a new name: Black Garlic, combining a favourite ingredient with a playful, proudly Black identity.
There was no culinary-school route into the work. The foundation came from home: the recipes her mother taught her, the everyday practice of feeding family, and the belief that hospitality means making room for whoever arrives at the table.
Tradition, still moving
Clara’s work honours family-tested recipes and the knowledge carried through Zambian homes, while leaving room for new techniques, spices and influences from other food cultures.
The same holds for commissioned work: a product should look like it belongs in the dish and the culture around it, never dropped in as an afterthought. That is what makes an image feel useful, specific and alive.
What guides the work
The image can be composed and beautiful without making the food feel untouchable.
Zambian ingredients and dishes are presented with confidence, useful context and no need for exotic framing.
Clear communication, considered preparation and a willingness to help shape an early idea.
Images built for the channels, formats and real-world uses a brand actually needs, not just the portfolio.
Work with Clara