Photo by Chris Toalson

How’s this for a different perspective? Kevin Connolly was born without legs due to a birth defect. In 2007, he traveled the world for three months — 15 countries, 31 cities — and took over 32,000 photos of people staring at him.

Connolly, 22, is a unique guy, to put it mildly. He competed in the X Games monoski-cross for disabled skiers and placed second. He has prosthetic legs but doesn’t use them or a wheelchair; he prefers to get around on a skateboard. He was alone for half of his three-month travels. (And he only got hit by a car once.)

He held his camera at his hip and looked away while taking the photos so people wouldn’t change their expression or feel self-conscious. His aim was to find the commonalities in the world — in its reaction to someone like him.

As he told the Christian Science Monitor:

“The thing I just loved was you had an executive-looking type guy in say New York City, someone who’s clearly wealthy enough to afford a very nice suit and a good cell phone, staring at you in the exact same way that a beggar in Ukraine would.”

Fifteen of his photos are on display at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. through July 20.

To see more of Connolly’s work, check out his web site.

Or read more about his story in The Washington Post.