Alternative photography (also called alternative photography, alt photo or simply alternative) is a genre of photography that emerged from the independent photo underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s and 2000s. Although the term was most commonly associated in its commercial heyday with a vibrant, distorted photographic style, its original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of photographers unified by their collective debt to either the photographic style, or simply the independent, do it yourself ethos of punk photography, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative photography. At times, "alternative" has been used as a catch-all description for photography from underground photo artists that receive mainstream recognition, or for any photos, whether alternative or not, that is seen to be descended from punk photography (including some examples of punk itself, as well as New Wave photography and post-punk photography).
