Peter Haakon Thompson was born in St Paul, Minnesota in 1971. He studied photography at the California College of Arts and Crafts, making his home in Oakland, California for 11 years. His photography is concerned with exploring his relationship to landscape and place through self-portraiture. He photographs in places that are often ignored, fields, piles of rocks, parking lots, both here and abroad.

Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2000, Thompson has received a Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship, McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Photographers and twice been invited to Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder in Trondheim, Norway as an artist-in-residence. In his spare time he roller skates and ties knots.