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A little background on this special instance of Nicky Hayden signed memorabilia: As a MotoGP photographer I take a lot of pictures. Most are flawed in one way or another. Many are good enough in terms of content and quality to release to my customers or show on this website. A small number are good enough that I include them in my Portfolio of my best images.

Occasionally I get one that is, to me, really special. If I’m lucky this happens with two or three images a year. These are the images that I feel are uniquely mine in some way, images that define what I’d like PHOTO.GP to mean in the sensibilities of motorcycle racing fans.

I realize that most of the images I create at a race are, while technically competent, not amazing. Most of them are more or less like the thousands of other images my colleagues create as they go about their work of providing photos for their customers. Most of the time it’s difficult to identify the photographer by the image.

But occasionally you see a photograph that inspires at least an idea about who might have created it. A couple of years ago, Toby Moody mentioned to me that he’d run across this image somewhere and said to himself, “Aha, this must be one of Scott’s!” This was really pleasing to me, that someone who has seen as many MotoGP images as Toby has could identify one of mine by its look.

As I work a race weekend, creating the many ‘ordinary’ images I need to document the event, I’m always on the lookout for one of these special shots. But in fact they aren’t easy to come by. If they were, I’d have loads of them.

When I do manage to grab one of these special images, the first thing I do when I’ve identified it is put it away.

It’s not that I don’t want to share it with people, it’s that I want to share it in a special way, in a way that is appropriate for the best work I can do.

Determined

In 2012, during the MotoGP test at Valencia, the weather was poor, the visors clear, the rain tires hot. I stood at Turn 13, watching the riders come almost right at me on a wet track. The dense cloud cover provided little light, which suggested some slow shutter work. I got several images I liked in the hour or so I stood there, nearly freezing, photographing the riders as they rode past.

But I got one of these special images with one of my favorite people as the subject: Nicky Hayden. It was the end of a cold, wet day, less than an hour to go before the track closed, and only a handful of riders were out on track. Only a handful of photographers were watching them. I don’t remember anyone else there at Turn 13 at that time.

I wanted to go back to the Media Center to warm up, dry off, begin the night’s work of processing images. According to my files from the end of that day, only four riders were out there still running laps: Dovi, Abraham, Iannone, and of course, Nicky Hayden.

Getting to know and work with Nicky has been one of the greatest pleasures of my time in MotoGP. You know how on TV he seems so earnest, polite, smiling and friendly? He’s like that in person, too. He’s a genuinely good guy in addition to being a World Champion motorcycle racer.

So having a special image of Nicky meant I wanted to use this image to express something about his personality and character. For quite some time I thought about words to add to this image via an engraved plaque. Eventually I realized that just as this image is special among my work, so is Nicky Hayden special among MotoGP riders.

No other rider possesses his special combination of race craft, determination, work ethic, professionalism, and charm.

I don’t mean to suggest that other MotoGP riders don’t work hard. I mean that even among this group of overachieving superstars, Nicky Hayden stands out for how hard he works and how hard he tries, for his, in a word, determination.

When I look at this image, I think of these things. I hope at least a few people will look at the signed copies in this small edition and feel the same things.

Photograph: ©2012 by Scott Jones / PHOTO.GP – All Rights Reserved

Camera Info: Camera Info: Nikon D4 with Nikon 500mm f/4.0

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