Juan David Tena is a Colombian - Spanish documentary photographer, photojournalist and creative director based in Orlando, Florida. For more than a decade, his work has explored identity, migration, peacebuilding and cultural memory, following moments of historic transition in Colombia and the lives of immigrant communities in the United States. He looks past the event and toward the person, and his images carry the quiet dignity of the people who stand before his camera.

“I don’t photograph people. I make portraits of the soul. And for that, I first have to listen to them and understand them.”

Tena trained in photojournalism at UNINPAHU in Bogotá, where he graduated as valedictorian , and began his career on assignment for Colombian newspapers. As an official photographer for the Presidency of Colombia under Juan Manuel Santos, he documented the peace process from inside its most decisive years. He spent forty-three days in the Pacific region of Chocó alongside FARC members as they left their camps for the zones where they would lay down their arms, and his assignments carried him from the rainforest to the White House, Buckingham Palace, the United Nations, NATO and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo. His photographs have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, France 24, El Mundo, El Tiempo, El Espectador and Semana, and through UN News, UNESCO and the Nobel Prize.

In Central Florida, his lens turned toward immigrant communities: families who carry several countries inside them, and whose stories rarely reach the official record. That work became Portraits of FusionFest, which in 2025 made him the first Colombian artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art. In 2026, selected works from the series were installed at the Office of the Mayor at Orlando City Hall. His earlier exhibitions include We Know Who We Are at Mills Gallery, and his series Stories of My People received the FusionFest Visual Arts Grand Prize.

In his art and in his professional career alike, Tena approaches storytelling as advocacy for human rights, dignity, diversity and collective respect. His work stands with migrants and seeks to dignify individuals and communities before the companies, institutions and governments that shape their lives, inviting viewers to recognize themselves in others, especially those who suffer and those in need, and to see our differences not as weapons but as a shared richness.

“Let us be bridges, not walls.”

That conviction has shaped his career in communications. Tena spent six years as Communications and Public Diplomacy Officer at the Consulate General of Colombia in Orlando, and has since served as a marketing director and led public affairs and advocacy efforts for organizations across Central Florida. As founder of Abba Insight Media, he creates campaigns, films and narratives for institutions such as the Hispanic Chamber of Metro Orlando and FusionFest. He directed A Bless Life, a short documentary for FusionFest’s MYgration Film Program, and has contributed photography and columns to the Orlando Sentinel, Al Día Today and La Prensa.

At the heart of his work is his faith in Jesus Christ, which he lives not as a religion but as a relationship. It shapes the way he looks at every person: with love, with dignity and without exception.

In an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, Tena’s work remains deliberately, unmistakably human. Every image, film and story he creates is born from presence, from listening, and from the encounter between two people.

“My work is made by humans, for humans. My intention is to touch the soul, something no machine has yet.”

Tena approaches photography as testimony: a way to stay with people long enough to see them fully, and to leave a record that outlasts the moment.

Awards

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions

Press References