Doug Thompson has spent more than 40 years taking photographs of world events, from Ku Klux Klan meetings to wars to the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Now he has returned home to Floyd County, where he photographs local events and gives presentations of his photographs from around the world.
Thompson came to a Wednesday Club meeting in Danville to show a full house of members and guests photographs he has taken during the course of his life as a journalist and photographer for newspapers, magazines and news organizations around the world.
His presentation, “Adrenaline Junkie: 40 Years of Photojournalism,” shows he has traveled the world taking photographs that brought home images of war, poverty, racism and everyday life.
Thompson also showed the club a short video he was commissioned to edit after 9/11, showing the fall of the World Trade Center and the devastation to the Pentagon.
At one point in his life, Thompson took a break from photography and worked as a press secretary for two congressmen and then joined the House Committee on Science & Technology.
Thompson said he returned to his journalistic roots after 10 years in Washington, D.C., ultimately deciding to retire back home to Floyd County when his wife reminded him that he was getting “a little old” to be junketing off to wars around the globe.
Thompson now owns a multimedia studio, Blue Ridge Creative, but said he is still a newspaperman at heart, and still believes a newspaperman’s mission is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
• Contact Denice Thibodeau at dthibodeau@registerbee.com or (434) 791-7985.
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