Gazette Photographer Earns Top Prize

At four years old, Ray Ewing was barely old enough to form memories when his father, Doug Ewing, died of cancer. Photographs of his father sailing, fishing and playing cards thus became essential links to his father’s life.

That connection is part of the reason Mr. Ewing decided to become a photographer.

“One perfectly timed, well made photograph can in a thousandth of a second capture everything about someone…” Mr. Ewing said. “I think about that every time I take a picture.”

As photo editor for the Vineyard Gazette, Mr. Ewing carries this same level of care with him when capturing life on the Island. He said he is acutely aware that each moment will slip away, making the image he leaves behind all the more important.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a book release, or a disaster, some heartbreaking tragedy or a big town meeting vote,” he said. “Whatever it is, [I] treat it with the same level of respect.”

That care was honored at a ceremony on March 7 when Mr. Ewing, 35, was named photojournalist of the year at the New England Newspaper & Press Association awards ceremony held in Portsmouth, N.H. Weekly and daily newspapers from Connecticut to Maine are represented in the annual ceremony.

In a way, Mr. Ewing’s career in photography began his freshman year at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School when he first stepped into Chris Baer’s photography classroom. From there, he quickly became involved in almost everything creative the high school and community had to offer, taking advantage of Featherstone Center for the Arts’ open dark room hours and shadowing local photographer Randi Baird at weddings.

His family also helped nurture the young artist.

“I had the luxury provided by those opportunities to not have to doubt what I was going to do with my life,” he said.

After graduating from the regional high school, he studied photography at Maine College of Art & Design and then went to graduate school at the University of New Mexico.

A lot of his work drew from his experiences with tourism on the Vineyard. Mr. Ewing said he has always been interested in environments that are designed to influence how people feel. While studying off-Island, he photographed zoos and shopping malls, and when he moved to New Mexico, his work turned inward, exploring his relationship to the unfamiliar desert landscape.

He continues to pull from those experiences in his current work as the Gazette’s staff photographer and photo editor, documenting both the local year-round community and the summer influx of seasonal residents and tourists.

“It’s my personal responsibility,” he said.

After graduate school, Mr. Ewing held a variety of photography jobs, while also returning each summer to intern at the Vineyard Gazette. At one point his job included taking pictures of autopsies and physical crime scene evidence for the New Mexico medical investigator.

He also taught photography at the collegiate level for nearly 10 years, and was an adjunct professor at the College of the Desert in California.

He started interning at the Gazette in 2007, the summer after his sophomore year in high school. His first assignment was to photograph the midnight release party for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Edgartown Books.

He officially became the staff photographer in 2023 after moving back home with his girlfriend Kate Lizotte — whom he married this past October.

During his first week in the new role, he photographed the Venezuelan asylum seekers who were sent to the Vineyard in a publicity stunt by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The moment, and Mr. Ewing’s photographs, made headlines all over the world.

A photo Mr. Ewing took depicting a mother holding her sleeping baby while getting water from volunteers at St. Andrews Church in Edgartown was on the front page of the Washington Post, and also appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the London Times, among many other publications.

“I took so many pictures of every part of the process,” Mr. Ewing said. “The one that people wanted was the one with emotion, because that emotion was the powerful element that helped to tell the story and drive it home for people.”

Mr. Ewing said the uniqueness of Martha’s Vineyard requires that he pivot from photographing something as simple as a backyard chicken coop to a subject of global significance. It’s part of the reason he enjoys working at the Gazette.

“I take a picture and large segments of the world are looking at it, seeing something happen,” he said. “The idea that I can do that through this small town newspaper is really cool to me.”

Mr. Ewing said he views the Vineyard as an extension of himself.

“So many of the important formative memories and moments of my life are hyper specifically tied to physical locations, most of which are on this Island,” he said. “If I don’t have physical access to that location, I’m missing a whole part of myself.”

Being named photojournalist of the year is emotional for him, he said. He thanked former Gazette photographers Alison Shaw and Mark Alan Lovewell for their mentorship, along with former art director Steve Durkee, former editor Julia Wells and former publisher Jane Seagrave, along with current editors Bill Eville and Ethan Genter.

Mr. Ewing said that he is now approaching the age his father was when he died, and he hopes to live out his dreams on the Island’s shores.

Along the way, he remains committed to telling the story of his home.

“I hope what people are responding to in my photography and my coverage of this place is a deep level of care and interest,” he said.

Award-winning photos. 

This article appears in March 20, 2026.