Victor Arimondi took to the streets of San Francisco in 1987 to train his camera on the city’s often unnoticed construction workers and blue-collar laborers. The result was a departure from the male nude fantasies he had photographed for many years. His new images, which caught young men in action lit by natural daylight, had a social documentary feel. They captured everyday moments on the job as the men wielded jackhammers, shovels and drills or bent, stretched or squatted in rough work clothes. Arimondi was noticing and documenting the often unseen men who labored every day on the streets but his aesthetic and sensual eye still shone through: In some images, the men, frozen in a moment of physical labor, look like Greek statues. In other, tight crops create almost abstract compositions. In still others, Arimondi’s sensitive portraiture captures the individual dignity in each face. The construction worker photographs marked a turning point in the artistic direction of Arimondi’s work, which became more socially conscious, echoing the artist’s own evolving concerns.