ANY job comes with its occupational hazards, as former publishing editor Melisa Teo, 41, will tell you. Eight years ago, the editor, who wasn't at all "techy" when it came to cameras, had finished sifting through thousands of images for a photo book when she had an epiphany.

"After looking through so many thousands of photographs, I just really had this urge to shoot. All the photographers had different styles and after so many images, I understood the meaning of style, emotion, light, darkness, shadow - it all came to me and I went out to buy a camera!" she relates of her experience working on the Editions Didier Millet publication, Nine Days in the Kingdom, which featured works by 55 top photographers.

After she got the camera, she started shooting everything. "Even my office table and the car park!" she chuckles. The camera shutter was like a Pandora's Box for her as it unleashed all her unrest and boredom. "I started to have this existential crisis ... I was miserable but didn't understand why. I wanted to see the world. I was asking myself what's the meaning of life."