I curate a couple of feeds on Bluesky that collects candid, human-centric street photography (which would be more accurately called candid or spontaneous photography). The first, Candid Street Photos, finds and identifies candid photography from whoever is posting these shots on Bluesky. It doesn’t catch them all, but I do make sure that all the shots in the feed belong there.

The second such feed is called Life, Love, Joy & Pain, which I’ve previously discussed on this blog. This feed poses themes or challenges to photographers to find or take shots that conform to the weekly theme. For the week of March 3 – 9, 2025, we’re doing “Human Contrasts.” Now, based on questions I’ve received, I realize this one might not be intuitively obvious, so here are my thoughts.

We are besieged, at the moment, with the idea that human differences are problems to be eliminated or ignored. Our diversity is now a whisper to be held in the shadows, and we’re being conned into thinking that differences have something to do with race, with ethnicity or and other set of superficialities. If you’ve ever spent time on the street, you this is not to be true. Our differences are randomized and individualized. They are society’s cement, not the cracks within it.

With Human Contrasts, we seek to show how different people can be in a shared space. These contrasts can be physical, age, racial, or in attitude. We can be asleep and alert. We experience similar people doing different things, physically different people who seemingly share a single human impulse, and other groupings of people who seem as different as day and cheese.

Let us celebrate them.

Above, a “Model for a Sculpture” awakens in the Hirshhorn Museum while his human companion drifts to sleep. In a different interpretation of the phrase, our steadfast guard’s dark skin renders our photograph a high-contrast image. He is shadowed and sleepy, while his supposed inanimate friend is bright and awake.

Below, a Pittsburgh Penguins patron feels comfortable pregame amidst a sea of Washington Capitals fans. (The Penguins won.) He hides behind his shades, but no one paid him any attention. It wasn’t that kind of party. He’s no Crip and the Caps fans aren’t the Bloods.

Two people seemingly different, a dark-haired woman and a white-haired man, share an interest though they’ve never met. We contrast in style and purpose, but it is a needed natural device.