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This is one of those images that didn’t take shape in mind until seeing the raw file several times. Something about it seemed like potential that wasn’t obvious right away. Eventually I thought that it reminded me of the work of one of my favorite photographers, Pete Turner.

Turner was one of the first photographers to embrace color technology when it was the new thing. He created striking and iconic images that found a home in the large format prints of vinyl record sleeves. Just do a Google image search for “pete turner photographer” or visit his website and you’ll see what I mean.

As with all artistic works, his aren’t for everyone. But as his images showed up on one after another of the jazz recordings I was buying as a youngster, I developed a strong appreciation for his style before I realized those images were the work of a single person.

Most of the images I create at a MotoGP race don’t lend themselves to the bold, saturated colors and high contract abstractions of Turner’s work. If you mess too much with the signature yellow of Valentino Rossi’s livery, it starts to look weird pretty quickly. But this image seemed a good candidate for my own version of the Turner style.

As I worked on it, I thought it might be a good candidate for a Raw Challenge as I was taking only a portion of the original file and changing the colors quite a bit. I invited readers to take the same raw file and edit it themselves. The results were, one again, very interesting to see. Check out what others did in Raw Challenge #2 if you’ve not already done so.

Photograph: ©2014 by Scott Jones / PHOTO.GP – All Rights Reserved

Camera Info: Nikon D4 with Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8