'HEY, I WANT to see bigger smiles - with teeth!' the photographer said. And that was what I tried to show him for the next three hours.
I had plucked up the courage to go to a studio in Mongkok for a series of portraits of me looking 'totally beautiful'. For $480, you get a package including professional make-up, three different hairstyles and 36 pictures of myself dressed in outfits ranging from a kimono, a sweet pink tank top to a transparent white vest.
Having an album of portraits done has been popular among teenagers for as long as I can remember and, judging by the number of studios set up in recent years, the trend appears to be alive and kicking.
The studio promises to transform you into someone even you yourself would hardly recognise.
So there I was, sitting by the make-up table, waiting to be transformed. Would the make-over be a fun experience like the advertisements claimed? I was about to find out.
Messy eyebrows were the first things to irritate the make-up artist. She used a small razor blade to pare away eyebrow hairs one by one to make me more beautiful.
After that came the magic. With just a regular make-up brush, she powdered my face and in a second, all my big pores, pimples and uneven skin tones were gone. It was like being air-brushed!
