Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. ~Rumi
Tenaya was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She took her first photographs at the age of ten. By the time she was eighteen, she was shooting news release photos for local Atlanta papers. In 1981, formal photographic education was begun under the guidance of Neil Chaput de Saintonge at the Southeastern Center for the Photographic Arts in Atlanta. It was Neil’s emphasis on excellence and quality that came to influence Tenaya’s work and define her style.
Tenaya has worked on many special projects ranging from magazine covers to travel photography. In 1988, as a photo assistant/photographer, she covered the U.S. Presidential campaign. She criss-crossed the country, traveling with the presidential candidates and then incumbent President Bush. The resulting photographs were part of a project that was exhibited during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. This project was sponsored in part the Eastman Kodak Company.
A Cherokee descendant, Tenaya began capturing Native Americans on film around 1986. After seeing an exhibit of her work at the Georgia State Capitol, the Educational Media Department of Georgia State University requested Tenaya as the still photographer for its film VOICES IN THE WIND. This educational film on the Cherokee was filmed in the fall of 1989 and aired on PBS. The film was also sponsored in part by the Eastman Kodak Company.
In the winter of 1990, Tenaya braved fifty below zero temperatures while traveling by horseback with Lakota Sioux in South Dakota to document the Big Foot Memorial Ride. This ride honored those massacred at Wounded Knee in 1890. Tenaya received a generous grant from the Eastman Kodak Company for this event. She continues photographing our Native people. This collection of photographs, entitled OF SPIRIT AND EARTH, has been exhibited throughout Georgia.
Since 1984, Tenaya has worked as a portrait photographer specializing in children and families. Over 50,000 families have their memories preserved through her work. Because of her gift of bringing out beautiful and natural expressions on the faces of the people she photographs, she was given the name Spirit Catcher by a Cherokee Grandmother.