BETWEEN THE ROCKS IN A HARD PLACE : PHOTOGRAPHER KARAGOZIAN SHOOTS AWAY IN LOW PLACES TO CHRONICLE AWESOME TASK OF L.A.'S SUBWAY WORKERS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

``Hey,'' someone says, ``it's the Village People!''

Ha, ha, ha.

Yeah, Ken Karagozian has heard that joke about a million times before.

When people first see his group portraits of hard-hatted subway workers, something invariably reminds them of beefcake '70s disco groups.

Karagozian laughs. No, he doesn't mind the wisecracks. He considers it all part of the job.

Since 1994, the 42-year-old Encino electrician has been crafting a visual tapestry of one of the biggest public works projects in urban history: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's $6.1 billion Red Line subway expansion.

Going underground

For the past two years, Karagozian has spent a good part of his waking life ankle-deep in mud under 100 feet of rock, snapping a 35mm camera.

This month, thanks to his tenacity, the Valley is getting a rare eyewitness view of a ``Twilight Zone'' landscape, and of a massive construction project that, so far, may have generated more blistering editorials and cynical one-liners than civic pride.

Dogged by delays, fires, collapsed streets and political backbiting, the Red Line has become a reluctant symbol of mismanagement and inefficiency. Two weeks ago, tragedy struck the project when a 52-year-old subway worker, Jaime Pasillas of Los Angeles, was hit by a 5-foot-wide bucket that had broken loose from its chain.

The subway project's woeful public image leaves Karagozian frustrated. He's hoping that those who visit Artspace Gallery in Woodland Hills between today and Saturday will check such preconceptions at the door.

``This (subway) project has got such negative publicity, and it seems we live in a society where people just want to talk about the bad things,'' Karagozian laments. ``Let's just do it, quit fighting about it. My philosophy is, `We can put a man on the moon, we can do this.' ''

One-man army

With or without NASA's help, it took Karagozian nearly a year to get permission to shoot the project. All told, he needed the blessing of four different entities, including the MTA and Parsons-Dillingham, the construction management team. MTA officials say they're not aware of anyone else willing to take on such a headache for the sake of posterity.

``Ken just really persevered on his own,'' says MTA spokeswoman Lynda Bybee. ``He spent some time getting to know the folks at the site and gaining people's confidence. Ken was someone who really humanized the work process, because I think the subway process has been faceless for a long time.''

Like Los Angeles itself, the face of the subway project is Asian, Latino, African-American, white, male and female. It is serious or smiling, streaked with dirt, fatigue and resolve.

Though Karagozian took many pictures of the subterranean work sites, with their sci-fi dimensions and otherworldly glow, the character of the miners aroused his curiosity. To flesh out his portraits, he's interviewing a number of the workers, posing questions about their private lives and feelings about the project.

``At first I really didn't know what I was going to photograph,'' he says, ``but then seeing the construction workers, the more they respected me and let me be part of their world, I think they had a story to be told.''

After seeing Karagozian's prints, several workers have asked for copies, which the photographer develops in the backyard darkroom he built himself.

Study in contrast

Karagozian also wanted to make the photographs look as natural as possible, so he shot in black and white, and used only existing tunnel light. Those aesthetic choices, says the MTA's Bybee, lend the photos ``a timeless quality,'' capturing the bygone look of a period when most humans earned their bread by sweat equity.

Tim Ride, an assistant photo curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, says that the beginning of public works photography dates to the 1870s, when railroad tycoons such as Henry Huntington sent photographers to document rights-of-way for future rail lines. In the West, photographs also were used to validate land claims during the Gold Rush and to propagandize massive government-backed monuments such as the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.

More recently, photographers have documented the section of the Chavez Ravine that was swept away by Dodger Stadium, and the construction of the Century Freeway. The faster Los Angeles changed, the more it seemingly needed photography to tally the gains and losses.

``The interesting thing about photography and Los Angeles is that the city and the medium basically grew up together, and one was never very far divorced from the other,'' Ride says.

Power player

In some ways, Karagozian himself seems like a throwback to the age when intrepid photo-explorers set out with their tripods to record America's frantic empire-building. Though he works full time as an electrician for KABC-TV, Karagozian throws himself into photography projects with the single-minded focus of a Walker Evans. He's still getting over the time when a newspaper story described him as an ``amateur.''

In addition to 30 images from the subway series, the Woodland Hills exhibition features 15 images of the monthly Rose Bowl swap meet and other urban life scenes by Karagozian.

``I really wanted to go into photography, but I wasn't sure what type of photography I wanted to do,'' he says. ``But I've always pursued photography. And I know sometimes, too, when you have to do something for a living it doesn't become an art then. It's more of a job.''

Meanwhile, the job of linking far-flung Los Angeles via underground railroad goes on. Whether the current expansion ends in 2009 (as planned), or in 2029, Karagozian vows to be there when the last rock is cleared.

While taxpayers fret, contractors kvetch and politicians squawk, he'll keep clicking.

THE FACTS

What: ``Tunnelers at Work on the MTA and Other Urban Life Scenes: Photographs by Ken Karagozian.''

Where: Artspace Gallery, 21800 Oxnard St., Main Plaza, Woodland Hills.

When: Noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; through March 1. Artist's reception noon to 4 p.m. today.

Admission: Free. For information, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos

Photo: (1) Ken Karagozian's photographs of MTA tunnel work are on display at Artspace Gallery in Woodland Hills.

(2) ``Thelma'' stands ready to bore under the Hollywood Freeway south of Universal Studios.

(3) ``At first I really didn't know what I was going to photograph,'' says Karagozian, an electrician at KABC-TV. ``But then seeing the construction workers, the more they respected me and let me be part of their world, I think they had a story to be told.''

(4) It took Karagozian a year to obtain permission from all entities involved before he began shooting. All of his photographs utilize the existing tunnel light.

(5) The tunnel-boring machine breaking through at Sixth Street and Vermont Avenue.

Photos by Ken Karagozian