Transience in Analog and Digital Photography
The digital reproduction of the first photograph,
“View from the Window at Le Gras,” is widely available on the internet. The original image, captured by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in the summer of 1827, is difficult to discern with the naked eye, as it was created on a metal plate coated with bitumen. In 1952, photography historian Helmut Gernsheim, together with experts, produced a special photograph and increased its contrast, making the details more visible.
It is precisely this enhanced version that circulates online as the digital reproduction of the first photograph in history. The original is housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. To protect it from deterioration, the photograph is stored under specially controlled conditions, including an oxygen-free environment that slows its decay.
Analog photography
is not only a technique of image recording but also a unique testament to transience. The physical nature of this form—be it the silver emulsion on film or the image fixed by light on other materials—makes each copy a unique relic that bears the traces of time. Every scratch, every color change, or other imperfections that arise through the natural aging of the photograph remind us of the inevitability of passing time while simultaneously lending the image an emotional depth that is often difficult to achieve in digital recordings.
In contrast, the pixel
—the smallest unit of a digital image—is a mathematical construct, perfect and unchanged in its original state. Its perfection stems from the precise digital encoding of information, which is not subject to the ravages of time. This means that a digital image can remain unchanged for decades, provided the storage medium and the technologies for its reproduction are properly maintained.
This dichotomy between analog and digital image recording
prompts reflection on the nature of memory and history. On the one hand, the analog photograph, with its organic quality and susceptibility to change, conveys the essence of human experience, showing that beauty often lies in imperfection and transience. On the other hand, the digital pixel represents a striving for permanence, precision, and flawlessness, enabling us in a rapidly evolving technological world to preserve memories almost perfectly.
Materiality and unpredictability
One could thus say that analog photography, with its materiality and unpredictability, recalls the fleeting nature of life, while digital images, with their permanence, offer the possibility of archiving memories without temporal decay. Both forms of image recording have their raison d’être, and their coexistence highlights the diversity of our perception of the world as well as our need to capture time—both in its mutability and its constancy.
Przemek Zajfert, March 2025