To ask a question of one of our photographers or editors, leave a comment in this thread. Our photographers and editors will also answer comments elsewhere on Photo Desk and in future live chats. These questions and answers have been lightly edited.
Does The Globe publish photos submitted by the general public? Let's say that a political party wishes to submit a photo taken at one of their events, do you accept? If so, are you confident that faked or Photoshopped images can be detected?
David Lucas, photo editor:
We do from time to time publish photos submitted by the general public. They are usually sent in from major news events where members of the public were at the right place at the right time.
We typically don't use submitted photos from political parties unless the news warrants the usage.
There are instances when political leaders, including prime ministers and presidents, will forbid access to certain events and instead provide the media with images taken by their own photographers. The wire services will sometimes move these images with a disclaimer that states where they came from and that the agency was not give access.
If there is any question at all about the validity of an image we will not use it. That goes back to our ethics policy.
What's a Think Tank and a Pixel Pocket Rocket?
Fred Lum, staff photojournalist:
Think Tank Photo makes excellent camera bags, backpacks and rolling cases. The company also makes the Pixel Pocket Rocket, a compact flash card wallet. Domke is another camera bag manufacturer. Both brands are designed by photographers for photographers and made in the U.S. Lowepro is another company you're probably familiar with and I use their camera backpacks for hiking with my film cameras.
There have been a number of questions on the last Q&A on digital storage
Fred Lum, staff photojournalist:
There are pros and cons to negative storage and digital storage that we each need to consider. Since I shoot both, I have twice the number of headaches, if you will.
Negatives do have good long term storage properties if processed and stored properly. If you are paranoid, one option would be to scan them as digital backups, but that might be a bit onerous. You might need to be selective if there are a lot of negatives involved. Keep in mind that they can be lost to fire or flooding, leaving one with nothing if they're not stored safely.
Hard drives are quick and affordable means of backing up raw or jpeg files. The price of drives has come down enough that buying multiples is within the reach of most photographers. It's been suggested that if one does buy multiple drives, it's wise not to buy them with sequential serial numbers in case there has been a bad run of drives.
Keep in mind, however, that hard drives do have a lifespan and I've been told by data recovery specialists that it's not a matter of 'if' but 'when' they fail, and they will fail catastrophically. If you're lucky, you may get a clicking sound as warning but more often than not, it's a precipitous drop. Storing on drives then becomes a cycle of copying to new drives every couple of years or so. I'm guessing most people have all their images on their local drive and that's it.
Perhaps the best alternative for both film and digital photographers would be to use cloud storage for important files. Not ideal, but it offers small peace of mind.
How do you develop 120 roll films at home? It takes big expensive equipment and lots of chemicals, right?
Fred Lum, staff photojournalist:
I process all my black and white film myself. You don't really need much at all to process film beyond a developing tank, a watch or clock to time your process, something to measure your chemistry and a storage bottle for the fixer.
I use a Jobo CPP-2 rotary processor which takes the tedium out of agitating the film for me and I find it gives me just a bit more consistency but nothing remarkably noticeable. I can go old school if I need to or if I'm developing on the road.
You should be able to find everything you need to develop your own film locally if you're in Toronto, so you should be able to get started right away. I'd look at Henrys, Downtown Camera or Eight Elm to start with. There are also online options you can browse for darkroom equipment once you become familiar with the process.
In your case, you'd need a tank that can handle 120 film (or two 35 rolls). I prefer steel tanks and reels but some people find loading steel reels more than challenging, in which case you'd be looking for plastic tanks and reels made by Patterson. You should be able to find larger tanks that will process multiple rolls if you want to do more than one at a time as well. A space which is light tight for loading the film onto reels is also needed.
Most people use a windowless room and put towels under the door to keep stray light out.
For chemistry I use Rodinal, a one-shot developer that's been around for years and has excellent shelf-life properties if you don't process very often. Use it once and down the drain it goes. Not the finest grain developer out there but I like the sharper looking grain it gives me. You'd probably want to try different developers until you find one that gives you the results you like. You can use water as a stop bath if you don't want to use photo stop bath because of the odour (think strong vinegar). Fixer is reusable until it's exhausted at which point you should put it in a labelled container and dispose of it properly by bringing it to your city's waste transfer station as household hazardous waste. There's minimal cost to disposing of it and it's better for our environment.
If you're not one to learn film processing by trial and error, there should be courses available at community colleges or universities. A camera club in your area may also have courses or workshops on film developing so perhaps look into that as well.
Processing your own film will give you more control over what your final photographs will look like and there's nothing like looking at your hand-processed negatives through a loupe on a light table.