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.