Born and raised in New York City, Raymond was a quintessential New Yorker. In high school, he took his father's folding Kodak camera onto the streets of the city to gather photographs for the school newspaper; his first assignment was covering the 1939 World's Fair. After serving with the Signal Corps in World War II, he returned to New York. Through experimentation and the guidance of photographers like Lisette Model and Sid Grossman, Raymond soon became a professional photographer and skilled black-and-white printer.
In a city that never sleeps, Raymond could always shoot his favorite subject matter: ordinary people doing everyday things, captured without interruption or the influence of the photographer. - Eleanor Jacobs
