Single Frame Journal #5

Lisbeth Luft - Momentum

Lisbeth Luft is a documentary photographer based between Barcelona and Brazil. Through her work, she explores cultural diversity and moments of deep human connection.

In this photograph titled "Momentum," Lisbeth checks all those boxes, capturing a layered blend of tones from a community whose urban culture is as misunderstood and blamed by many outsiders as it is celebrated by its own members and by those who, even if only briefly, get to taste those "umami" flavors.

This kind of photographic approach really moves me, especially when it comes to these peripheral urban spaces—call them what you will. I've had my fair share of late nights roaming the streets with Mendeleev's periodic table tattooed on my retina, and out of respect for these raw, nuanced, human stories, I won’t pretend to speak about their lives from the outside. I’m just here to listen, stay quiet, and absorb. I draw my own personal conclusions from what I’ve read, heard, and seen in this collection and a few other credible sources, aware that I’m only scratching the surface of a world that’s becoming a little less sealed off thanks to people like Lisbeth.

"We don’t feel threatened by the leaders of the criminal factions who put up banners saying it’s forbidden to ‘rev your engine’ and ‘do wheelies’. This only happens because the State is absent…" — Anonymous local rider, quoted in Ponte Jornalismo – Grau e Corte: a festa da quebrada que incomoda o asfalto

"Each community has a ‘grau’ crew, with its own flag and uniform. It’s almost like a soccer team." "Wheelies are very stigmatized, like many movements that come from the favela or outskirts, such as capoeira and baile funk." "It’s like a men’s ballet. It’s a very masculine universe… It’s a super-performative event." "It’s all done with great unity. The guys show they trained for many months, all year long, to be at that event." — Melissa de Oliveira, from Agência Mural – Grau e Corte: motociclistas desafiam leis e mostram estética periférica no Rio

All these voices—whether from riders, documentarians, or community insiders—paint a picture that’s as layered and charged as the scenes Lisbeth captures. Their words linger, and it’s through that resonance that I shift into my own reading of this moment and what it evokes.

Individual vs. collective, micro vs. macro, us vs. them, inside vs. outside—these polarized binaries are exhausting. It’s a dissonant duality that seems to erode emotional intelligence, trust in others, and basic decency, forcing them to walk a tightrope between two faces of the same coin, split not by hate but by fear—as if we’re not all warmed by the same sun. Some may be "more equal" than others, but blood stains on Nike soles hurt the same.

In that T-zero moment—that perfectly coordinated alchemy between the dopamine rush and the suffocating smell of burnt rubber sketched on the asphalt by the rear tire after your best grau ever—that’s where it happens. That’s where you feel like you’ve been seen, even from space. That’s where you see yourself and everything else from a wider angle, from a higher plane than the dust at the curb. That shift in perspective starts to blur the dividing lines between neighboring micro-communities and hopefully the outside world.

It’s like a neural network of thoughts and emotions Lisbeth evokes through this piece, where every compositional element leads my attention toward a different view—a perspective that bows to the importance of keeping faith in the future.

The composition: the motorbike, the dual frame, the rightward open angle, and that central pole like the spine of this improvised energy grid we call being human—grimy, glitchy, sometimes short-circuiting, but still pulsing with connection. Dirty, improvised, breaking down at times—but somehow still holding us all together. Humbling.