Simon was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1963 and educated in England finishing at Oxford and Bristol Universities with a degree in Philosophy and Sociology. After Leaving the Documentary Photography course in Newport, South Wales he worked for far-left publications specializing in work on anti-racist activities and fascist groups, in particular the British national Party. In 1994 he gave up photojournalism in favour of landscape photography.

His book “For Most of it I Have No Words: Genocide, Landscape, Memory” about the places that have witnesses genocide was published in 1998 to wide approval. The work was exhibited at many venues including the Imperial War Museum in London, the Nederlands Foto Instituut and the Holocaust Museum in Houston. The work produced during the war in Afghanistan in 2001, published as 'Afghanistan: chronotopia' was very well received. It won the European Publisher's Award, an award from the Foreign Press Club of America and was nominated for the Citibank Prize. It was published in five languages and is now in its second edition. There have been more than 20 solo exhibitions of the work.

In 2004 Simon won The Infinity Award from the ICP in New York and in 2005 Le Prix Dialogue in Arles. His most recent book 'Bleed' about the aftermath of the war in Bosnia, was published in 2005. His work appears regularly in the New York Times Magazine and the Guardian Weekend.