[alt-photo] an alternative to alternative

[Christina Anderson]

Dear All,

A philosophical question that I probably won't formulate well:

I've been having this discussion lately about the use of the word "alternative" in alt. The question is, alternative to what? Also, that it is an outmoded word. It doesn't mean anything. It has other connotations today. It pigeonholes us and isn't popular with gallerists. We are no longer "alternative" to the Big Yellow Brother as Kodak is bankrupt and anything goes nowadays. Etc. etc.

We just went through this ridiculous process of common course numbering at our university so that courses are named and numbered the same across the state if the course taught is the same. My course is now called "Alternative Photographic Techniques." because I couldn't come up with anything pithy, although I wanted it to be Contact Printing Processes.

The question: is what term are you using, or does "alt" continue to be sufficient? I thought what better group to ask than 500 alt listers.

Chris

Christina Z. Anderson
christinaZanderson.com