Macario J. Giraldo was born in Washington, DC to immigrant parents from Colombia and Puerto Rico. His father is a clinical psychologist and his mother an art therapist.

His parents stressed the importance of traveling at a young age and when Macario was 14 his parents and two siblings went on a two week cruise along the Danube river. The family documented the trip with a camcorder and Macario was eager to capture the strange new places and people of communist Europe. After traveling through ten countries and seven airports the family returned safely home with twenty-plus cassettes of visual evidence of their great adventure through eastern Europe. At Dulles International Airport, the camera and tapes were stolen.

Nine years later in college, Macario picked up a camera after being frustrated with the intangible aspects of his philosophy major. Macario graduated with a double major in philosophy and fine arts from The Loyola University Chicago in 1994. He is a recent transport to San Francisco where he continues his passion for photography and the visual reconciliation between the tangible and the intangible. Macario is extremely careful with his cameras and film and has not lost or had them stolen since.