Opie was influenced early in life by photographer Lewis Hine. At the age of nine she received a Kodak Instamatic camera, immediately capturing her family and community. Opie spent her early childhood in Ohio, but her family moved near San Diego when she was 13 years old. She studied childhood education for a year as an undergraduate, but soon went to the San Francisco Art Institute to earn her bachelor of fine arts degree. She completed a Masters of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts in 1988. Her thesis project Master Plan (1986–88) examined the planned communities of Valencia, California, from construction sites and advertisement schemes, to homeowner regulations and the domestic interiors of residents' homes. In 1988 Opie moved to Los Angeles, California and began working as an artist, supported herself by accepting a job as a lab technician at the University of California, Irvine. Opie and her companion, painter Julie Burleigh, constructed working studios in the backyard of their home in South Central Los Angeles.