In August 1974, Muhammad Ali was at his rural Pennsylvania training camp preparing for the “Rumble in The Jungle”, the pivotal fight against George Foreman to regain the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship title that had been stripped from him when he refused the Vietnam draft several years before. The most famous personality on the planet had withdrawn to the rustic sanctuary he called “Fighter’s Heaven” to prepare himself physically and spiritually for the contest few thought he could win. On a magazine assignment, photographer Peter Angelo Simon was amazed by what he found at the camp. His photographs are an intimate, historic record of Muhammad Ali’s imaginative formula for success, revealing the creative atmosphere of the camp and aspects of Ali not previously seen.

Peter Angelo Simon discusses his time with Ali – now forty-two years – and his extraordinary experience photographing in Ali’s Deer Lake camp, with a viewing and discussion of many of the 120 photographs in his new book, most never before published.