One of the most fascinating and recent discoveries in the field of genetics was that DNA, the very building block of life, essentially mimics what we understand as digital data.  Upon unraveling the genetic code of thousands of species, it became clear to geneticists that each strand of DNA offered a combination of digits, similar to that of the one’s and zero’s our computers use to process large amounts of data.  Since DNA relies on self-replication to construct its eventual forms, the idea that it far more resembles a digital copy than an analogue one starts to make sense:  analogue copies have a tendency to alter slightly from generation to generation (and eventually become un-recognizable from the original), while uncompressed digital copies remain unaltered regardless of generation. 

When pondering the transition of photography from an analogue to a digital medium, it could only be concluded that at its core, the digital photograph has the ability to remain true to its original form, whereas the analogue image is bound to change.  Immediately after capture and development, the negative begins the process of degradation that will continue throughout its life as an image.  From its development to its printing, to its presentation and conservation, the analogue media must be protected from the harmful elements that will eventually contribute to its demise.  The digital image, however, in its uncompressed form has the potential to remain as an exact copy; its form consisting of a set of fixed and unchanging values.  A pixel is a particular colour, represented by an exact number on a given scale – regardless of how many times it is copied, this will never change.

It becomes clear that one of the most significant differences between the analogue photograph and the digital image is the matter of its permanency in its original form.  This permanency allows the digital image to exist in infinite places, simultaneously, as an exact copy.

I download a photograph from the Internet, and like DNA, an exact copy replicates itself onto my hard drive.  A decade ago the very same photograph may have made its home in a tacky photo album or buried shoebox, the latent image slowly fading away into obscurity.  Even worse, perhaps it would have been left undeveloped: forgotten and neglected, like a memory not quite worth remembering.