Alison Jackson

“If you see everything through the lens, you are constantly composing pictures. I think in pictures; I don't think in text.”

“I think privacy is important, and it's important you don't bore people with your own boring self.”

“A lot of people who look at my photographs think it is an easy joke, but it does take a bit of thinking about.”

“I had a very outdoorsy childhood. I was athletic and used to ride and do dressage. I could ride almost before I could walk. There is a picture of me at 18 months old sitting happily on the back of a donkey.”

“Finding the perfect lookalike to work with is crucial and a lengthy process. We have our regulars, but we also use social media all the time to find people. It's amazing who you can unearth on Twitter.”

“I'm not satirical in a traditional way. What I do is more about creating caricatures and cartoons. I am commentating on the nature of how we live through photography, and how you can twist an angle to create a different perception of a person.”

“Because Bin Laden's culture doesn't permit the worship of images, they understand how powerful images are. We wouldn't have thought of creating a visual bomb. In a way, he's chopped down two iconic buildings, and used our very truth imagery, to express himself. It's fascinating... I mean, dreadful.”

“Art work is inconclusive. It opens your mind up. At least, that's what I hope it does. And advertising, using exactly the same photograph, closes things down. It makes it conclusive. It sells a product, and that is its primary function.”

“I am fascinated by the Royal Family because they are shrouded in mystique, and the Queen, and to a certain extent William, represent fabulous blank canvases. I find the Prince of Wales less fascinating because he spills the beans and we know too much about him.”

“I'm really interested in how we view the public figure, what makes a public figure, what makes a celebrity, and how images make politicians, so I take an interest in politics, but it's really an interest in the image.”

“I suppose we carry photographs now, but I think it's rather wonderful that people used to carry drawings and watercolours. I wish people did that more often.”

“Photography can be a deceitful, superficial medium that leads us into believing something even though we know it's not necessarily true. It lulls us into a false sense of complacency.”

“I'm particularly interested in how you can't rely on your own perception.”

“Photography acts as a teaser, suggesting we can know something that we can never know. And the more we can't obtain it, the more we want it.”

“I can't remember exactly how old I was when my parents gave me my first camera, but it was a Canon, and I was certainly far too young to have such a good camera.”

“It's always difficult to see yourself as other people do, but I'm realistic about my appearance. I wasn't born with one of those pretty, pretty faces, so I've never been absorbed with the way I look. I just try to make the most of what I've got.”

“Warhol was the ultimate voyeur, constantly observing people through the lens. He watched and listened, but did not participate. Behind the camera, Warhol was in control.”

“Of course, my own political beliefs inform the ideas I come up with.”

“When I am preparing my 'lookalike' photographs, I think about the character of the real people, because, if the photographs are going to be plausible, you have to convince the viewer that they could have happened.”