In 1989, the Gazette purchased Martha’s Vineyard Magazine, and made Alison the Art Director. She started shooting in color for the magazine, and soon found that she was “seeing” in color, as an artist. She was drawn to clear, bright colors and dramatic compositions.
On Saturday mornings, Alison started taking photos at the Farmer’s Market in West Tisbury (she still takes her workshop students there). She went to docks and shot brightly-colored details of boats and buoys. Even on a trip to New Zealand to teach a workshop, she scoured the landscape for nautical details in bright primary colors. She jokes that she went halfway around the world, only to look for exactly the same subject matter she had at home.
Farmer’s Market 1992
Blue and Yellow Buoys 1992
In 1994, Vineyard Summer was published, full of Alison’s color images. After multiple printings, it sold over 20,000 copies – and spawned more one-woman gallery shows and lectures.
By this point, Alison was teaching workshops for several schools, including Maine Photographic Workshops, and Rocky Mountain School of Photography. Each year she’d teach on Martha’s Vineyard, hosted by one of these schools. And she’d do travel workshops for them as well, in places like Nova Scotia, New Zealand, San Miguel, and Tuscany.
Tuscany II 2003
In 2000, Alison left the Gazette, and put her energy into Alison Shaw Photography. She and wife Sue Dawson had already been collaborating for years, and were ready to focus on the business together.
Without the ever-present deadlines of newspaper and magazine production, Alison went looking for a project…