The photographer Alice Hawkins finds herself in some odd situations. In Las Vegas she recently photographed a sixth-generation circus family who keep lions for an animal-themed issue of the fashion magazine Pop. “I asked what to do if the lion attacked me and the guy said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got household vinegar which we can spray in his eye and will sting for two minutes.’ So I thought, ‘Great, there’s me, the tripod, the lion and the vinegar.’ That was pretty scary.”

Hawkins, who regularly works for glossy magazines, has her mischievous stamp all over the December issue; here’s Alice Cooper on a sofa wrapped in a snake; here’s Hugh Hefner with a bunny (rabbit) in the Playboy mansion (he couldn’t believe the photographer was a petite, peroxide blonde and told her she should be on the other side of the camera – which she often is).

At 28, Hawkins has just opened her first solo exhibition, Alice Hawkins: The Female Gaze, at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sunderland (another, smaller exhibition follows in March at Spring Projects in North London), an overview of her fashion shoots from around the world, in which she dresses up ordinary people in designer clothes. “It’s like going on holiday and meeting people but taking a brilliant picture of them. I found them in a roadside café or on the internet. I love shooting Gisele Bündchen but so many people have shot her, whereas these people are just for me,” she chatters excitedly. “Quite often you find a beautiful old lady and there’s a look from Chanel that would set her off to a T, so I just ask if she wants to look through my suitcase to see what she likes.”

Hawkins grew up in Stowmarket, Suffolk, with her dad, Ian, an author and historian, and mum, Mary, a solicitor’s accountant. She has been with her boyfriend James since she was 17, and they’re getting married next year (“on the hen do we’re going to lose ourselves in Vegas and find ourselves in the desert”). She has always put people and photography first, with fashion fitting in after her degree in graphic design at Camber-well Arts College. iD phoned a week before graduation and asked her to work for them – even though she declares herself “not trendy”. “Once, at the White Cube gallery, I was too scared to go in so I stood outside with the paparazzi and took pictures of Liz Hurley’s bum getting into a cab.”

Russian Vogue, American Harpers Bazaar and ad campaigns for Top-shop and Agent Provocateur followed. Hawkins claims that to challenge our perception of beauty isn’t her first intention, but her photographs tell a different story. “Fashion is great, but it’s not really me. It’s like fantasy and I’m not living in fantasy, I just want the people I photograph to look good. If I saw a woman walk past with brilliant hair I’d be out the door asking for her number. If I didn’t, I’d regret it for two weeks.”

Future plans include ticking off her list of blondes (“Donatella Versace I’ve ticked; then there’s Pamela Anderson and Dolly Parton, who I’m obsessed with. She’s the complete package. If I could pop a pill to look like her I probably would,”) and travelling America taking shots of farmers. She’s just got to get over the lion thing first. “I’ve been dreaming about it since June and it was so amazing that I feel like I might be chasing that dragon for ever. If there’s not a lion now, then what’s the point?”

Alice Hawkins: The Female Gaze, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland (www.ngca.co.uk), until Feb 7 2009

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