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 for a decade, until it vanished. From 1984 through 2000 he photographed throughout Haiti, and later looked at tourism across Florida, especially the "rite of passage" of vacationers at Disney World. Gary Monroe has always photographed throughout Florida and also "wanders aimlessly" to photograph in other countries - Brazil, Israel, Cuba, India, Trinidad, Poland, England and Egypt to name a few. At the turn of the millennium he photographed the landscape, focusing on the transformation of place due to corporate-driven planning. In 2020 he began photographing digitally.
Gary Monroe's life's work is housed at Emory University's Stuart A. Rose Library.