Gary Monroe, a native of Miami Beach, received a master's degree in fine arts from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1977. Upon returning home, he photographed the old world Jewish community that characterized
South Beach. Since 1984 he has photographed throughout
Haiti, and later looked at tourism across Florida, especially the "rite of passage" of vacationers at
Disney World. He also "wanders aimlessly" to photograph in other countries – Brazil, Israel, Cuba, India, Trinidad, Poland and Egypt to name a few. Recently he has been looking at the
landscape, especially the transformation of place due to corporate-driven planning.