It seems a majority of photographs are about beautiful subjects, like sunset landscapes, Aston Martins, flowers, etc. Where you mostly get to see other types of photographs are in press photos. When I lived in Tokyo, I used to always go to the World Press Photo exhibit and there I was able to see gritty photos.
So the next time you go out shooting, try not to look for only beautiful subjects. Go out with the purpose of photographing something gritty, something less than beautiful, something that will force the viewer to think.