ZENITHON AI FOUNDERS

Zenithon AI is a London startup building AI world models for extreme physics, systems that predict how complex physical systems behave so engineers can design fusion reactors, rockets and semiconductor equipment faster. Its pitch is that a model can explore a million design points in the time it takes to run one conventional simulation. I photographed its two founders, Alex Higginbottom, founder and CEO, and Abetharan Antony, co-founder and CTPO, at the Barbican on Monday 7 September 2026, ahead of the company's brand and website launch.

The company announced a $10M seed round on 30 September 2026, which was covered by Tech.eu, Tech Funding News and others. These portraits were made three weeks earlier, so the company had a launch-ready set of its founders in hand when the news broke.

The brief was a portrait of each founder and a group shot of the two together, in a two-hour window from late morning. The Barbican suited the subject: raw concrete, hard geometry and long sightlines give a technical, serious backdrop for a physics company without the cold look of a corporate studio.

Locations were agreed on the day within the window. The group work used three distinct set-ups: a low angle against open sky with both founders on a concrete wall, a relaxed lean on the terrace ledge, and a wide frame down a colonnade, where the founders stand apart at the far ends of a long perspective. That wide frame became the hero of the set because it shows scale, the architecture and the two people together.

For the individual portraits I moved to a textured concrete wall and shot vertically, keeping the background tonally close to the founders' plain navy and white clothing so that faces carry the frame. The dark, uneven surface kept the background quiet behind both faces.

Final selects were colour corrected and retouched to editorial standard, then revised once after feedback. The set gave Zenithon portraits for its website, launch materials and social channels, delivered through Backed, its investor.