Seni Tienabeso spent the early part of his childhood in the Bahamas before moving to Philly's suburbs. He later moved to Atlanta and double majored in Political Science and Journalism at Emory University. Just before his senior year, Seni grabbed a camera, laptop and plane ticket to South Africa and set off to work. He spent his summer filming a documentary on a group of Apartheid freedom fighters. He credits this documentary with helping him land his first job in media at the Baltimore CBS-affiliate WJZ. Years later, he's now a producer for ABC News and in his own words: "covering Florida, Latin America, and wherever else the News Gods send me."
What's the first piece of art you fell in love with?
I can't remember the first piece but I do remember as a kid walking through the Musee Picasso (a simple museum atop a beautiful stretch of the French Riviera) and going dizzy with sensory overload.
Who are your favorite designers?
I'm a big architecture nerd: Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid
What is the best piece of style advice you've ever heard?
Always try to look like the better looking version of yourself.
Who are your favorite writers?
I think real life is wilder than fiction so I tend to only read newspapers, magazines, biographies... Of this lot, there are so many amazing writers, I tend to look for the story.
What is inspiring you these days?
Imagining what Miami will look like after all the cranes and design proposals become something real.
What is your motto?
Live life, love life.
What is your favorite indulgence?
Travel, I'm obsessed with planet Earth.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
The next untold story.
What career other than your own would you like to attempt?
Screenwriting.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I wish I could sing.
What's the furthest, most remote place you've traveled to for a story?
Atacama Desert, Chile for the miner rescues a few years ago. The Atacama is so remote, so lifeless that NASA tests Mars rovers out there.
The year is a little more than halfway over, what do you think have been some of the biggest stories of 2013?
Boston Marathon attack...Watching armed teams move in, just blocks from where we were doing tv in a sleepy Massachusetts town, capture terror suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and then listen to residents serenade police with cheers of "USA" was amazing to witness. The George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin trial and a new Latin American Pope were also huge.
Do you think the perception of Miami in the media is changing?
It has already changed. ABC the company where I work and Univision are teaming up and creating a very exciting 24-hour channel called Fusion right in Doral.
Photo credit: Justin Namon
