Born in 1954 and reared in Southern Pines, North Carolina, Lynn Marshall-Linnemeier began painting as a child. She took up photography in 1986 and attended the Atlanta College of Art where she graduated with honors in 1990. In 1989, she worked with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, and Jackson State University on a collaborative project entitled "Mississippi Self-Portrait". This project included traveling the State of Mississippi to collect photographs and stories of African Americans who lived there.

Marshall-Linnemeier has received numerous awards for her work including an NEA fellowship and a Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Arts International Travel Fellowship which took her to Adelaide, South Australia to photograph and collaborate with the Aboriginal people of that region. In 1996, she was commissioned by Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta to create a permanent installation and was included in the photographic exhibition "Picturing the South, 1860 to the Present" at the High Museum of Art.