From Claudine Zia’s article for Danish blog Kunsten.nu:
The digital photograph had its breakthrough in the 1980s, when numerous artists experimented with the medium’s multiple techniques. Whereas analogue photography reproduces traces of reality, the digital image challenges photographic realism. And whereas the analog image is developed in a darkroom, the digital photograph is manipulated through various imaging applications.
[…]
Digital manipulation is a common feature of Nancy Burson’s artistic career, when, in the early 1980s, she created her famous ‘composites.’ Through digital imaging technology, Burson creates portrait photographs that are pieced together from photos of various celebrities. “First and Second Beauty Composites” (1982) consists of two portrait photographs tangential to the photographic expression between the fictional and real. Burson’s diverse portraits comment on the digital age where virtually anything can be manipulated.