Sometime in the winter of 2025, we realized that Alison’s start as a photographer for the Vineyard Gazette was in 1975 – fifty years ago. When Sue suggested commemorating such a huge milestone, Alison reluctantly agreed – “It makes me sound so old!” On the contrary, if you’ve met Alison, she’s still the young-at-heart, exuberant artist she was all those years ago.
Writer James Kinsella did a wonderful article about Alison that ran in the June 30, 2005 issue of the Vineyard Gazette, the 30th anniversary of her start at the paper. He chronicled Alison’s childhood interests in art (painting), her summers on the Island, and the day in 1975 when Alison’s friend convinced her to apply for work at the paper. They were both hired part-time as “inserters,” who put inside sections into the front section of the paper. According to Kinsella, Alison was “thrilled to get her foot in the door at the Gazette, which she revered as an institution, even though she later realized any warm body standing on a street corner probably would have qualified for the job, which paid minimum wage.”
Soon she was promoted to operate the addressograph, “stamping mailing addresses on papers with an antiquated contraption,” and started asking new editor Richard (Dick) Reston if she could take photos for the paper. The first news assignment he gave her was to photograph a large, modern, and controversial house under construction on Chappaquiddick.
Alison began pasting up ads, then moved to pasting up the paper, and eventually was promoted to Production Manager, and ultimately Director of Graphics and Design. Throughout her years at the Gazette, she was basically doing two full-time jobs, as the photography was a side hustle – shooting assignments, processing film, making contact sheets, and printing 8×10 glossy prints were all on her own time.
As she learned about production and printing of the Gazette, all done at the newspaper building on Summer Street, Alison developed a style that would ensure the best display of her images. “Let’s make the sky black rather than some dark shade of gray… make the snow white rather than have any texture to it. It was always blowing them at either end, and basically condensing the range of my black-and-white film, but it caught your eye pretty quickly.” It became her signature style, and was discerned easily by readers – many whom have told Alison that her images were instantly recognizable.
Alison’s take on photojournalism went beyond capturing events to go with news stories. “I have no interest in just recording reality. That would be boring to me. I have to put my own take on it in some way. And my take on it needs to change, or I get bored with myself.” Dick Reston embraced Alison’s creative style, and ran her images large on the front page, and the editorial page. Sue remembers him joking about Alison’s images from the Edgartown landfill, for a special section in the paper: ‘only Shaw could produce beautiful art from the dump.’
Edgartown Landfill II 1990
In 1990, the Gazette purchased Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, giving Alison the job as Art Director, and inspiring her to shoot in color. “It had been like you worked in charcoals for 15 years, and somebody suddenly handed you a box of pastels. You’re at the same location, the same place, but suddenly I had a whole new Island.”
So much has happened in these fifty years living year-round on Martha’s Vineyard, and photographing throughout. We have our own gallery, teach amateur photographers in a variety of programs, and we’ve raised two children (and multiple kitties). It’s hard to believe it’s been this long. But fifty years later, Alison is still just as motivated, still enjoying creative work, and still producing stunning images of her Island home.
Read on, for more about the Gazette years…