User:Jcarkeys

Biography
My birthday is 6 October 1988. I live in New Melle, Missouri

Education
I graduated from Westminster Christian Academy in Creve Couer, Missouri as a member of the Class of 2006.

I am currently a student at Truman State University where I'm pursuing my B.S. degree in political science. Two semesters down, ? to go.

Hobbies
My main hobby is in the field of photography. I own a Canon Digital Rebel XT and have since replaced the stock lens with a Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens. I also own the 100mm f/2 USM lens. It's something I thoroughly enjoy, and my work is available online.

I've also started shooting film. I purchased a Kiev 88 in September and have been shooting with it fairly sporadically.

In the spring'07 semester I enrolled in ART 213: Creative Photography 1. As a result, I need to shoot with a 35mm camera. I've been using my dad's Canon AE-1 and I bought a used 50mm f/1.8 lens in St. Louis for $20. I've also used my dad's 100 mm f/2.8 S.S.C., Macro 50 mm f/3.5, and his 28 mm f/2.8 though I tend to stick with the fast 50.

With this class we've been doing our own darkroom work as well. While waiting for film to dry one day, I decided to explore the supply cabinets. In them, I found several cases. I opened them and low and behold their were various lenses, cameras, and all other sorts of photographic apparatus. I stumbled across a lone rangefinder, a Mamiya 6MF. I promptly asked our instructor if I could use it, she said yes, and I've been playing with it ever since.

Wikipedia Life
Well, I don't think one could call me an active contributor to the Wikipedia cause. I mostly find articles through either doing random searches, or by digging through links exclusively from one starting page. If I find errors, I change it immediately. I try and go through and fix things. I'm not a fan of writing articles or making major changes, I applaud those who can. However, it's not truly in my personality to really make pages or make major changes. I'll go through and maybe start something and let others fix it up later, but never a real article on my own.

I hate trying to figure out Wiki formatting. It seems in many ways either too limiting or too convoluted. Yeah, it beats HTML, but there are so many tags and different stub categories, etc etc, that it's almost impossible to find them all, not to mention a lack of a central directory of codes. Maybe there is and I haven't discovered it yet, I'd be greatly appreciative if you told me if there was.

I however, love to just read articles. There's such a wealth, especially in the highly scientific/non pop culture articles. There is an absolute truth in the obscurity, vandals don't tread on articles on things they don't understand, which I appreciate.