Why we named the studio after a student of light
Zahn is pronounced "tsahn" and comes from Johann Zahn, a 17th century German scholar who designed one of the first portable cameras. Here is why we took his name, and what Zahn Studios does today.
Every image we make starts the same way his did: light passing through a small opening and landing somewhere it can be seen.
Zahn wrote and illustrated more about the camera obscura than anyone of his era. He was obsessed with clarity — with making the projected image sharper, brighter and more faithful.
That is the standard we hold ourselves to. Not decoration, not noise — the subject, projected with intent.
People ask us two things about our name. How do you say it, and where does it come from? It is pronounced "tsahn", the German way. And it comes from Johann Zahn, a German scholar who lived from 1641 to 1707 and spent much of his life studying light.
Who was Johann Zahn?
Zahn was a member of a religious order and a writer on optics. In 1685 he published Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus, a large work on lenses, light and the instruments people used to see further and more clearly. He is considered the most prolific writer and illustrator of the camera obscura, the darkened box that projects an image of the world through a small opening or lens.
Among his designs was a small, portable camera obscura with a mirror that turned the projected image the right way up onto a sheet of glass, so an artist could trace it. That design is often described as the first idea for a portable camera. It came more than a century before anyone could fix an image chemically and call it a photograph.
Why name a studio after him
Everything we do starts with light. A commercial, a documentary and a portrait all come down to how light falls on a subject and how a lens collects it. Zahn's work sits right at the beginning of that history, before film and before digital sensors, when people were first working out how to capture what they saw.
We liked that his contribution was practical. He wrote about light, and he also drew and described tools that people could build and use. That is how we think about our own work: craft first, then the story the craft makes possible.
What Zahn Studios does today
Zahn Studios is the trading name of Zahn Global Limited, registered in Nigeria in 2023. We produce commercials, brand films, documentaries and social content, and we also offer photography, branding, public relations, training and production management for larger projects.
Most of our work is food and drink. We have filmed for GTCO for about four years, and our clients include Nigerian Breweries, Pernod Ricard, Martell, The Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Cadbury and restaurants across Nigeria. We have also made documentaries for commercial and government clients, from Kano's dye pits to the NNPC Stargate groundbreaking.
The team is small on purpose. Tekena Williams directs and shoots, Amos Bode is our cinematographer, Chika Ezemeh edits, Bilkisu Rufai manages projects and Vanessa Williams runs operations. We own most of the equipment we use, so we can say yes to a shoot quickly and keep costs honest.
Where we are going
We are building Zahn Touring, our own food travel series about the people and cultures behind African food, starting in Nigeria. It is the clearest expression of what the name stands for: going out into the world and bringing back what we see, as truthfully and beautifully as the light allows.
You can see our work on the work page, or get in touch if you have a story to tell.