Shaw was an artist starting as a young boy, when he would scrape tar off the street and sculpt animals out of it. As a teen, he switched to paint; as an adult, his preferred medium was film: he joined Colliers magazine as a photojournalist in the 1940s, documenting life in the United States.
Later, Shaw became known as a cover photographer for Time and Life magazines. But likely his most famous images is the photograph he took of Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate, her skirt billowing up to her waist. Shaw died April 5 in Westwood, N.J., at age 87.