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George Lessard is trained and has experience in desktop publishing, photography, radio & TV production, computer graphics, educational audiovisuals, journalism, and web-based media. He works in English and his mother tongue, French. In the fall of 2009 he taught a series of courses (in French) created for Yellowknife's new Francophone college, Collège des Territoires du Nord-Ouest designed to service the needs of and emphasising the needs of: artists and other individuals, small and medium sized businesses, family businesses, freelancers, the self-employed, nongovernmental organizations and civil society groups called Polishing Your Image: Contemporary Digital Imagery and Communications. In August 2009 he mentored a “Through Young Eyes” digital photography workshop for young photographers in Fort Laird NWT under the auspices of The Frozen Eyes Photographic Society funded by Fort Laird, BHP-Billiton and the NWT Arts Council.
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His most recent full-time job was at Northern News Services Limited in Yellowknife, NWT where he co-ordinated, processed and edited all the editorial photography for this publisher's six newspapers for three years.
George Lessard on top of the Chelyabinsk, Russia trade centre building, the highest building in town. The Mias River is in the background. Photo ©2009 Евгения Шумакова
George's photos on Flickr have been seen by over 517,421 times by 103,111 unique visitors. From 1999 to 2004 he was the Media Specialist for the Nunavut Department of Education in Arviat, Nunavut where he designed print publications using Quark for distribution to Nunavut schools and produced educational videos in both English and Inuktitut.
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As a freelance media consultant and trainer, George's recent contracts have included advising the Photo Studio of Yudin Andrey Nikolaevich in Chelyabinsk, Russia on studio management, hardware, web presence and international marketing; a series of workshops on Photoshop and for the Conseil de développement économique des TNO / NWT Economic Development Council (CDETNO) in Yellowknife & Hay River, NWT; Youth Photographer Mentor for the 2008 Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife NWT; programming consultant for Radio Illimani, the Bolivian national radio network in La Paz, Bolivia; Digital Journalism Trainer for Media Action International at the National University of Rwanda, Butare as part of a UNESCO journalism training project; in Orissa, India, he documented the work of a rural Indian NGO whose over 200 staff members and field workers who worked with the “tribals” of Orissa on housing, health, sanitation and income generation projects. Prior to his work in India, he was in Beijing, China where he worked as a copy editor and polisher for the China Daily Group of publications on the 21st Century a “... semi-official...” weekly for English learners in the universities across the mainland. In August of 1992, George completed a two year contract as a lecturer in journalism & communications teaching photojournalism, electronic news gathering, small group communications and business communications at the College of the Bahamas in Nassau, the Bahamas.
Information, Communication and Media Specialist
Prior to his College of the Bahamas contract, George was in Canada's western Arctic teaching a short course in basic video production at Arctic College, Inuvik Northwest Territories and was also contracted, for 12 months to teach all aspects of television production and facility management at the Inuvialuit Communications Society. Earlier to his work in the NWT, he was also contracted to Taqramiut Nipingat Inc. of Salluit, Nunavik (Quebec) as a radio / TV production & management trainer where he taught all aspects of media production, scripting, construction and content & management at an Inuit owned and operated broadcast centre.
He has presented digital imaging workshops as a visiting artist in Vancouver, Banff, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Inuvik and Rochester N.Y.; New Delhi & Orissa, India; Butare, Rwanda and Chelyabinsk, Russia.
A photoshoped montage George created for Northern News Service’s “Deh Cho Drum” year in review issue of 2007.
As a professional media practitioner, George is a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists; Canadian Artists Representation / le Front des artistes canadiennes and the Canadian Artists Representation Copyright Collective.
The Award of Excellence, from the 10th TOKYO VIDEO FESTIVAL for George’s dramatic narrative video RUMBLESPHINX
In 1985, George was a presenter at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, United States of America. From 1974 to 1976, while managing the audio - visual workshop facilities of Vanier College's Snowdon Campus he managed the campus photographic darkroom for the CEGEP's photography department.
His images have been seen in Tokyo, Japan; Madrid, Spain; Leicester, England; Brooklyn, NY, USA; San Francisco California, USA; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Seattle, Washington, USA; New York, NY, USA; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Canada.
January, from the Traditional Inuit Calendar in Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun, English and French that George designed for the Nunavut Dept. of Education
George was the Artist-in-Residence for the month of in February of 1988 at the Visual Studies Workshop of Rochester, New York. The residency at that postgraduate program was funded both by the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Endowment for the Arts. George works with many PC and MAC programs including Quark, Photoshop, InDesign, Final Cut, Acrobat Pro, MS Word, Publisher, PowerPoint and a host of others.
VOLUNTEER COMMUNITY WORK Vice-president of the board - The John Howard Society of the Northwest Territories; Member of the Yellowknife Community Justice Committee; Member of the board - l’Association Franco-
culturelle de Yellowknife (AFCY) Member of the board - The Frozen Eyes Photographic Society of the Northwest Territories; Member of the board - Aurora Arts Society; Member of the board -
l’Association des francophones de Fort Smith; Member of the board - The Artists of the South Slave Society; Official photographer - 15th & 16th South Slave Friendship Festival
451 Norseman Dr., Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, X1A 2J1, Canada E-mail: mediamentor@gmail.com Phone: (867) 873-2662 Cell: (867) 445-9193
Information, Communication and Media Specialist