Who is Lesa Snider King?

Official bio

Lesa is on a mission to teach the world to create--and use!--better graphics. She’s a stock photographer and chief evangelist for iStockphoto and founder of the creative tutorial site GraphicReporter.com. Lesa is the author of Photoshop: The Missing Manual (O'Reilly, 2008) along with many video training titles including Graphic Secrets for Business Professionals (Lynda.com, 2007), From Photo to Graphic Art, and Practical Photoshop Elements (KelbyTraining.com, 2008). She writes regularly for Macworld Magazine, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, Elements Techniques, and Layers Magazine. Lesa is also a corporate trainer and teaches at many industry conferences including Photoshop World, Macworld Expo, Mac Mania Geek Cruises, and the esteemed Santa Fe Workshops.

Since 2003, she has assisted New York Times technology columnist David Pogue’s with many projects, including his Missing Manual book series and NYT videos. You can catch her Graphics Tip of the Week live each Wednesday night on the Your Mac Life internet radio show, which she also co-hosts.

During free time, you'll find her carving the twisties on her sportbike or hanging with fellow Mac geeks. Lesa is a proud member of the BMWMOA, F800 Riders Club, DACS, NCMUG, Washington Appe Pi, and LiMac.

Photos

High resolution TIFF (7.1mb zip file)

Web resolution JPEG (72k zip file)

And even more geeky goodness

While teaching a "Tips & Tricks for Getting Your Web Site Found" session at the MacDesign Conference in 2003, I got reacquainted with one of my idols, David Pogue. When I bought my first Mac in 1995, I read Macs for Dummies cover to cover, and had never laughed so hard while reading a technical manual.

Long story short, I've now been David's personal assistant for three years. I create custom graphics for his New York Times columns and videos, and serve as production editor/graphics goddess of the Missing Manual series. I also research and acquire the gadgets he reviews in his weekly Times columns, and enjoy some incredible relationships with manufacturers and their PR companies as a result. Together, David and I put on a unique technology show last September to benefit the Discovery Science Museum in his home town of Bridgeport, CT. We'll be repeating that particular bit-o-fun this September. (If you're a product manufacturer and would like to be involved, let me know!)

The most rewarding thing I do is teaching people how to create better graphics. To that end, I created this web site and try to speak at as many conferences as possible. I've also become the lead tutorial writer for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals, a contributor for Macworld Magazine, Layers Magazine, and Planetphotoshop (where I also serve as forum moderator).

In January 2006 something very exciting happened: I became the chief evangelist for the world's most diverse and affordable stock image provider ever, iStockphoto. I had been using their images in my tutorials for years and they'd seen me at several conferences. It's so easy to evangelize such a wonderful resource, so this past January we decided to make it official. I could not be happier. I'm now on a mission to get in front of as many groups as possible, teach them some wonderful graphic techniques and enlighten them about iStockphoto. I love my job!

To make this past January even more exciting, I got married... at Macworld Expo. My husband, Shawn King, and I met at Macworld while we were both teaching one year, he proposed to me the next, and well, since that's the one place our closest friends from all over the world converge, it just made sense to make it official the year after. It was an incredible occasion!