Lilo Raymond was born in Frankfurt, Germany, and fled to the United States as the Nazis came to power. Raymond soon became involved with the Greenwich Village art scene in New York City, where she worked for a number of years as an artist's model and tennis pro.

When Raymond was in her early thirties, her childhood interest in photography was rekindled in a class taught by David Vestal at the Photo League. She studied with Vestal for two years before beginning to exhibit in group shows. In 1977 she had her first solo show at the Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery in New York City and soon began attracting commercial work.

Though she honed her technical skills by working as a commercial photographer, Raymond always maintained a clear distinction between her commercial work and her art. Most of her commercial work was carefully premeditated and shot in color; her art photographs are black and white, largely unplanned and shot in natural light.

Raymond's work can be found in the collections of such major museums as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. A book about her work, entitled Revealing Light, was published in 1989 by Bullfinch Press. She lives in New York's Hudson River Valley.