About the artists at Loon Cove: Ray and Evelyn Richer
Over 30 years ago, Ray's enthusiasm for hiking, fueled by the urge to be in the woods, developed into the desire to capture memories as "images" to be shared with others. Ray's first camera was a 35 mm automatic film camera that left him unchallenged, unable to control the image results. After suffering a loss from a vandalized van, and losing all of his equipment by theft, Ray replaced his old camera with a used 35mm manual camera.
He was then eager to learn all the basics of photography, compensation, f-stops, and depth of field and much, much more. Although the "Beauty of Nature" has been the driving force for Ray to develop his photographing skills; his technical background and passion kept him intrigued, and motivated him to experiment with the camera; "pushing" it to its fullest range as a "tool" to achieve greater results. Ray always strives for his images to be just what the eye sees and the mind has captured. That is a "tall order" for any camera and photographer.
Ray developed as a self-taught photographer with the guidance of countless research books on wildlife and photography, seminars (led by some of the greatest wildlife and nature photographers of our day), and hours and hours of experimentation. Even today, with nearly 30 years of practice, he still finds each and every venture out into nature, a learning experience.
During the process of growing as a photographer, others have noticed that Ray possesses a God given talent as an artist to create compositions that are pleasing to the eye. He forces the eye to move directly to the focal point of the image, accurately capturing what his eye saw and his mind recorded at that instant the image was taken.
In 1994, Ray met and married Evelyn Demick, a wildlife artist, together their artwork has blossomed. Inspiring one another to do their best work, they produce artworks that compliment each other's creativity, resulting in ever improving and growing talents.
Together Ray and Evelyn own a home-based gallery located on the shore of Joe's Pond in Cabot Vermont. They affectionately call their home Loon Cove. Wildlife surrounds them now on a daily basis. Ray and Evelyn live with the Common Loon just off their shoreline in the spring and watch the loons all during their nesting season as they raise their chicks within sight of the gallery. Through the seasons, they have visits from deer, moose, bobcat and fox all in their backyard. Surrounded by inspiration, they continue to record images of these beautiful creatures.
Ray's philosophy for his photography has always been to capture wildlife as it lives its undisturbed life. He uses long lenses enabling him to stay, as far as possible, out of the "creature's space," respecting their "plight in life" to survive. Ray studies his subjects in order to capture the creature's image in its natural environment, unstressed and going about its daily life.
Ray and Evelyn strongly believe that there is a need to return to nature what nature has given to them. They work closely with the Vermont Dept. of Natural Resources and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science Loon Recovery Program. They also present multi-media shows and donate prints to help educate the public, raising money for these institutions to further their mission of preserving Wildlife and the Natural Environment.