Rúnar Gunnarsson was born in Reykjavík in 1944. He studied photography with Guðmundur Erlendsson at Stúdíó Guðmundar and at Brooks Institute of Photography, Santa Barbara, California. He graduated as a cinematographer from Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm and worked as a photojournalist and film photographer in Reykjavík. He was television producer and later a program director of the Icelandic National Television. His photographs have been exhibited regularly in galleries in Reykjavík and in 1995 he published a book titled Certain Visions.