digital/ized photograph is a ‹dubitative› image: [55] ). Its authenticity as a direct photo and the associated evidential value can now only be established through external authorization. [56] For this reason, a society whose communication rests primarily on digital (image) media requires a «well-founded, strictly arranged media policy»59— those who analyze the technological change from analog to digital photography are united in this conclusion.

From a technological point of view, the ‹That's how it was› of analog photography is based on the «irreversibility of the exposed material»; [57] the digital photo, in contrast, is characterized by its «immanent variability»: [58] The digital photograph is fundamentally reversible (it can immediately be deleted); its output as an image is only one of the possible manifestations of the data stored in binary form. [59]

A further factor in the ‹instability› of digital photographs is their dependence on hardware and software. Their visual appearance changes along with the file format, the screen configuration, through compression, conversion, etc. The greatest problem, however, is caused by the continuous further

development of computer systems: The change from one system to the next but one can make image data unreadable and thus inaccessible. And so there is a rift between potential ‹digital endurance› and ‹mechanical impermanence,› [60] which can only be bridged through continuous activity: Data stocks have to be adapted to each of the new formats in time with the new developments by the computer industry; they have to be put onto each of the new storage media before they only become interesting to media archeologists. [61]

According to an expert on image databases, «[d]igitalization projects necessitate constant reacting and acting, because what is digital does not rest, just as overall technological development does not rest.» [62] The professional condition for operators of image databases also affects both artists who work with digital media as well as each and every lay photographer: While the best way to slow down the physico-chemical process of the decay of photographs is to protect them from being accessed (by allowing them to be exposed to as little light as possible and storing negatives in underground freezer depots),