Swazoo Koolak Photography

My name is Jeff Lichtman. I came up with the name Swazoo Koolak years ago when I needed some test data for some software I was writing. I decided I liked the name and adopted it as a pseudonym.

I have a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California at Berkeley. I have worked for several software companies, including Relational Technology, Inc. (later known as Ingres Corporation), Sybase, Cloudscape and Informix. I have specialized in the language processing end of relational database management systems.

I live in El Cerrito, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. I do most of my photography locally, although I also shot a lot of pictures in New Orleans when I went there for the Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2012.

I have been interested in photography for a long time, but it was only and the end of 2011 that I decided to get really serious about it. I was driven to this when I tried to find a wall calendar I liked for 2012. Like many people, I buy a calendar every year, not just to keep track of the date but also to have some nice artwork on my wall. I had trouble finding anything I liked for 2012. Most of the photographic calendars I saw were competently produced, but didn't appeal to my taste. Many of them were dull: page after page of cliched, nearly identical images. I decided I could do better myself.