Laurie Simmons is a contemporary American photographer and filmmaker. Known for her distinct visual style and staged domestic scenes using dolls and miniature objects, Simmons questions the veracity of photographic realism and the stereotypes of American culture. 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. Her first photographs were portraits of friends, but she soon began photographing toys. In works such as Jane (1976), Simmons photographed her dolls with dramatic lighting so that they resemble images of people. In the 1980s, she expanded on her dolls project with series featuring toy ballerinas, cowboys, and “walking objects”—giant props worn by her friend and photographer Jimmy de Sana. Walking Camera I (Jimmy the Camera) (1987) is a tribute to de Sana, who died of AIDS in 1990.  Simmons has had solo exhibitions at, P.S. 1 in New York (1979), and the Baltimore Museum of Art (1997), among other venues. Her work has also appeared in the Whitney Biennial (1985 and 1991), Bienal de São Paulo (1985), Open Ends: Minimalism and After at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2000), and Last Picture Show at the Walker Art Center (2003).