I and Eye: Pictures of My Generation

From an early age Peter Simon has delighted in documenting the world around him. During his college years in Boston, Simon photographed many a student protest and the burgeoning counterculture scene. Tired of city life, he moved to a Vermont commune in the early 1970s. Then came his spiritual quest, seeking out gurus and studying with Ram Dass, photographing all the while. A fascination with reggae and Jamaican culture led him to Bob Marley and other reggae stars. Simon followed the Grateful Dead on assignment for Rolling Stone, and, at the "No Nukes" concert in Madison Square Garden, captured images of rock stars James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and many others. In the 1980s, he covered the "Amazin" New York Mets' 1986 bid for the World Series and, in search of a simpler life, settled permanently on Martha's Vineyard.

Accompanying these vivid images of an era is a nostalgic, autobiographical amble through Simon's eventful life, a text full of wit and angst. In this astonishing record of the far-ranging experiences of his generation, Peter Simon has captured many of the major figures and events -- both in the mainstream and counterculture -- of the past forty years.

I and Eye includes introductory essays by Peter's sister Carly Simon, who knows him as well as anyone does; David Silver, author, television personality, and music producer; Stephen Davis, who collaborated with Simon on Reggae Bloodlines and is the author of several books on music; and Richard North Patterson, Vineyard friend and bestselling novelist.

The causes, celebrities, and defining moments of the baby boomer generation have all been captured by Peter Simon's camera in the course of his journey from the 1960s into the new millennium. Love-ins, sit-ins, antiwar demonstrations, the "back to the earth" movement, communes, protests, nude beaches, the New Age quest for spirituality, reggae and the Rastafarians, following the Grateful Dead and the New York Mets, and finally, the idyllic life on Martha's Vineyard -- no other photographer has so evocatively portrayed the kaleidoscopic saga of this generation.

From an early age Peter Simon has delighted in documenting the world around him. During his college years in Boston, Simon photographed many a student protest and the burgeoning counterculture scene. Tired of city life, he moved to a Vermont commune in the early 1970s. Then came his spiritual quest, seeking out gurus and studying with Ram Dass, photographing all the while. A fascination with reggae and Jamaican culture led him to Bob Marley and other reggae stars. Simon followed the Grateful Dead on assignment for Rolling Stone, and, at the "No Nukes" concert in Madison Square Garden, captured images of rock stars James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, and many others. In the 1980s, he covered the "Amazin" New York Mets' 1986 bid for the World Series and, in search of a simpler life, settled permanently on Martha's Vineyard.

Accompanying these vivid images of an era is a nostalgic, autobiographical amble through Simon's eventful life, a text full of wit and angst. In this astonishing record of the far-ranging experiences of his generation, Peter Simon has captured many of the major figures and events -- both in the mainstream and counterculture -- of the past forty years.

I and Eye includes introductory essays by Peter's sister Carly Simon, who knows him as well as anyone does; David Silver, author, television personality, and music producer; Stephen Davis, who collaborated with Simon on Reggae Bloodlines and is the author of several books on music; and Richard North Patterson, Vineyard friend and bestselling novelist.

Boston Globe

Simon jumped into the hippie movement with his camera, an appetite for illegal substances and eventually, no clothes. He attended every be-in and sit-in he could find, documenting all that he saw -- and participating.