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I and Eye: Pictures of My Generation
by Peter Simon (Contributor: Carly Simon) (Contributor: David Silver) (Contributor: Stephen Davis) (Contributor: Richard North Patterson)
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Bulfinch (2001-09-03)
ISBN: 0821226452
EAN: 9780821226452
Dewy Decimal #: 070.49092
Hardcover: 224 pages
Edition: 1st
SKU: 080602001
Condition: Collectible: Very Go
Comments: This First Edition copy is in excellent condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. Beautiful, clean, crisp photos. Clean Hard Cover and Dust Jacket with Light/minimum, shelf/edge wear. Very interesting copy, worth having at an affordable price. (L11-10)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
While still a prep school student, Peter Simon began his career in photojournalism with Kennedy's assassination and civil rights rallies. College brought love-ins, draft card burnings, and the counterculture scene into his viewfinder, as Simon photographed Jack Kerouac's funeral, the tent civil rights gathering in Washington, DC, Abbie Hoffman, and other events and personalities. Tired with city life, Simon then joined the "back to the earth" movement, living on a commune in Vermont. He became intrigued by the "New Age" and studied with Ram Dass, then developed a fascination with reggae music and Jamaican culture, which led him to Bob Marley and other reggae stars. At the 1978 "No Nukes" concert, Simon captured images of rock stars including James Taylor, his sister Carly Simon, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. In this volume, Simon's images are supplemented by an entertaining autobiographical text, including excerpts from his personal journals.
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Customer Reviews
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Heavy to Hold
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-11-25
Reading Peter Simon's I and Eye really made an impact on the pleasurable aspects of my memory and my feelings of being connected to all the people I knew back in the 70s. No one has told this story as honestly and with as much warmth as Peter.
It i a big book . Big in more than one way: a big, luscious story of an era that we all hear so much about and big in size because it is more than a book book, it's a photo book. Frankly, it was rather kind of hard to hold on my lap while I read in bed, but I kept going and am glad I did. Wow! What fun. What a find!
His book inspired me to go looking for more 60s/70s stories.
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A Sharp Eye Indeed
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-03-23
At first glance, one would think that Peter Simon's book, I and Eye, is a coffee table-style, picture book. But one need only open it to find out differently. This book is an autobiography--with a really good picture album.
I had the privilege of meeting Peter Simon. He's friendly, laid back, and so open about himself you like him right away. Peter's honesty about himself, the good and the bad, was awe-inspiring. By the time he finished, I felt like we were old friends.
I and Eye is so much more than just a picture book. Through its pages, we see a life lived, with its joys--and its sorrows. Because Peter's camera was such a ubiquitous presence throughout his life--from his pre-teen years on--viewing I and Eye is like looking through an album of one person's memories. As a bonus, we get to see some of Peter's father's work (His father, Richard Simon was an avid photographer in his own right and co-founder of Simon and Schuster.) and get a glimpse of his childhood that we would otherwise not be able to see. Taken in toto, the book captures a life.
There are introductions by Carly Simon (yes, she's his sister), David Silver, Stephen Davis, and Richard North Patterson. Every one of them gives testament to the openness and honesty Peter has with people.
Technically, I and Eye is the work of a consummate photographer. Peter's specialty, to use a trite phrase, is the candid shot. Even his posed shots have a spontaneity that makes them seem candid. Some of his portraits are powerful. Some are precious. All provoke strong emotions. Peter's landscapes incorporate a love for the places he captures, a majority of them on his beloved Cape Cod. This book is a must for anyone who calls him or herself a photographer and aspires to do great things with a camera.
Take time with this book. Find a comfortable spot, relax, and allow its pages to carry you through the life of a warm, interesting, and talented man. You'll find the trip worthwhile.
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If You Remember the '60's...
Rating  (4)
Date: 2002-05-29
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
It's been said that if you remember the '60's you probably weren't really there. It's a good thing Peter had a camera because he probably would have been wondering himself what those days were like. Parts of his world, beautifully recorded, jar our memories. Whether these memories are painful or delightful, they are part of our collective story. Many '60's communes didn't allow photographs, so these may be rarer than one assumes. The book is worth looking at and reading.
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Uninspired photographs and more boomer self aggrandizement
Rating  (1)
Date: 2002-03-06
0 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I wanted to like this book, I really did, but I couldn't get past the amateurish tone as Simon retreads that well trod path that amounts to the sixties generation stations of the cross--wealthy childhood, discovering drugs and sex at college, dropping out and living off your parents on a commune, plugging into Eastern philosophies and, finally, capitalizing on "the good old days". I found the photographs mundane and the essays almost unbearable as Simon chronicles his constant drug taking and drifting from place to place. As another reviewer wrote, I don't think we would have seen this book printed if not for his name and his celebrity sister.
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Makes me wish I was born a few years earlier
Rating (4)
Date: 2002-02-25
1 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Peter Simon is a talented photojournalist, and this book is the story of his life, with a definite emphasis on the 60's and early 70's counterculture years, which he lived to the fullest. It's all here: the protests, living on a commune, the eastern spiritual gurus, flirtations with nudism, the (impressive) series of hippy girlfriends, the rock stars (he's Carly Simon's brother). I'm sure other members of his generation will find the book very nostalgic. As for me, it's almost enough to make we wish I'd been born 10 or 15 years sooner. I went to college during the early years of the Reagan administration. The 60's obviously weren't a very happy time, but it would be hard to imagine someone of my generation putting out a book like this: who would care? The later chapters of the book are an odd lot of whatever he was shooting during those years of his life. Therefore we have some baseball coverage, some photos of landscapes and his celebrity friends on Martha's Vineyard and some coverage of Woodstock 1999. I'd judge these chapters as substantially less interesting than the early ones. One thing this book does illustrate is the importance of connections in getting a book of photography published. I'm not saying it's not a worthy project: it certainly is. But a lot of worthy projects are never published, and it's hard to believe his sister's celebrity and his family's connections in the publishing industry ("Simon" is the "Simon" in "Simon & Schuster") weren't key factors, especially for a virtually unknown photographer.
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