Surveillance camera is on

HAVE you seen the photo of Paris Hilton in an orange lock-up jumpsuit, pushing a mop under the jeering gazes of cellmates? Or that shot of President Bush in what appears to be a private Oval Office moment, struggling over a Rubik's Cube? Or better yet, that snap of Queen Elizabeth catching up on her reading -- how can we say this most delicately -- in the loo?

One might be tempted to say that Alison Jackson, the photographer who "bagged" these marquee names in their in-the-margin moments, has an uncanny sense of "right place / right time." But what she's after is much sharper, more refreshing and ultimately more subversive than simple surveillance.

Look closely and you'll discern that "Paris" or "President Bush" or "Her Royal Highness" aren't quite whom they appear to be. They're meticulously costumed and styled look-alikes, set up in unexpected and, at turns, discomfiting situations -- Mick Jagger submitting to collagen injections, Bill Gates working on a Mac, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes reading to daughter Suri from "Scientology for Babies." The photos are Jackson's clever attempt to force us, as viewers/consumers, to stop -- to question what we're looking at. They also work as provocations, forcing us to pay closer attention to that innate impulse to embroider imagined narratives onto celebrity myth. "If you get the right composition," says Jackson, "you can tell a whole other fantasy story that exists in the public imagination which is totally different from the truth -- and that's what photography does."

Jackson's new book, "Alison Jackson: Confidential," published this month by Taschen, is a parade of provocative images conjuring the A-list actors, musicians, politicians and 15-minutes-of-fame celebutantes who seem, whether we like it or not, to knock around in our consciousness. The images feel "real" enough to make you look more than twice. Their jittery focus and seemingly rushed, imprecise framing make them that much more "authentic," as though they were caught on the fly or procured through a peephole. Some think of Jackson's images as satiric -- and there is something shocking/embarrassing about seeing someone with her skirt up, both literally and metaphorically, that can inspire a nervous or knowing chuckle. But Jackson isn't simply playing pranks. She sees the work as commentary. "I'm trying to raise questions about photography," she says. "The very nature of photography. I question it -- media imagery -- as deceitful," adds Jackson, who recently touched down in L.A. on business -- mostly TV and publisher meetings and to prepare for an upcoming gallery show. "So you think you're looking at the queen, but in fact you're looking at Jane Smith. I'm proving that you can't rely on your perception when it comes to photography. The camera does lie."