Laurie Simmons was born in 1949 in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York. She began photographing at the age of six, when her father bought her a Brownie camera. She received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1971 and two years later moved to the SoHo neighborhood of New York. She later worked as a freelance photographer for a doll house company.

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Simmons began photographing toys, in particular dolls she purchased from an antique toy store. She positioned her dolls in domestic scenes and experimented with dramatic lighting. Her work challenges the norm by her use of imagination.

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Simmons is a contemporary photographer who questions the veracity of photographic realism and the stereotypes of American culture. Her work is similar to those of photographers like Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince who also photographed portraits and various domestic scenes.