I Am Woman, Hear Me Drill

When Ken Karagozian went underground to photograph the Metro Red Line subway miners, he wasn’t sure what he’d find. The project’s artistic possibilities first struck Karagozian, 44, when he passed the Barnsdall Park construction site near KABC-TV, where he’s an electrician. It took time to gain access to realize his vision: capturing the faces behind the subway in black-and-white, male and female. “It’s that much harder for the women,” he says of the workers pictured here. “I admired their toughness and commitment, how they stood their ground in a male-dominated environment.” While he learned little more than the workers’ first names, Karagozian estimates that he has made 300 trips underground since 1994, following the tunneling from Vermont Avenue to North Hollywood. He descends weekly into the darkness beneath Universal City, vowing to persist until the end. “It gives you a new perspective on the subway to be in a place so few have been,” he says.

*

Ken Karagozian will present his work this Monday at 7:30 p.m. for the Sierra Club Camera Committee, (310) 828-6300, at the Felicia Mahood Center, 11338 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A.