Ray Ekstrom became a naturalist, birdwatcher, artist and photographer beginning in the mid-1940s in rural Siskiyou County, California, where anyone who pursued nature study was regarded as suspect. For years Ray was a closet birdwatcher, hiding his binoculars whenever a car would pass. He began photographing his surroundings at an early age and in 1965 tried his first bird photographs.
Today considered Siskiyou County's premier photographer and certainly one of northern California's top wildlife photographers, Ray has worked mainly in central and coastal northern California, southern Oregon, and the Canadian Rockies. He has exhibited at many photo shows in northern California.