A half-naked shrine parishioner using a wooden tub pours cold water onto himself during an annual cold-endurance festival at the Kanda Myojin Shinto shrine in Tokyo, Saturday, January 10, 2015. Pouring cold water on their bodies is believed to purify their souls. (Photo by Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo)

Light is the sole reason why life exists. It provides us with warmth; it allows us to see; it nourishes all the living things on this planet. Many painters, especially the masters of Old Renaissance Period, have recognized the importance of light and its intimate connection with nature and life itself. In their paintings they gave tribute to light, giving the impression that their paintings had a light source hidden within them. Al Hogue, the artist who created the paintings that you see before you, has studied their techniques for many years. As time went by, light permeated not only his paintings by also his life, becoming his sole philosophy.

Hindu devotees, their bodies pierced with lemon and paladai, or bowl with a spout mainly used to feed milk to infants, wait to participate in a procession to mark Shivratri, or the night of Shiva, in Chennai, India, Wednesday, February 18, 2015. Such processions are held as an offering and show of devotion by devotees on the day dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. (Photo by Arun Sankar K./AP Photo)

The Aurora Borealis seen across the sky in Lapland, Finland. The beautiful phenomenon was captured by photographer Marko Korosec on a trip to the arctic region of Lapland in Northern Finland. He used long exposures on his Canon DSLR to create the stunning images. (Photo by Marko Korosec/Barcroft Media)

In this Wednesday, March 18, 2015 photo, limestone quarry workers walk through a cloud of dust spewed into the air by rotor blades of the stone-cutting machinery in the desert of Minya, southern Egypt. Around 45,000 people, including children, work in an estimated 1,500 quarries, digging out stones that later will be used in construction or powdered to be used by pharmaceutical and ceramic companies. (Photo by Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP Photo)

Participants pass an egg using their mouths during a religious ritual as they play the role of traditional fighters in a parade during the Popo (Mask) Carnival of Bonoua, in the east of Abidjan, April 18, 2015. The carnival has its origins in the changes that Aboure youths in Bonoua introduced to the annual festival of yams. (Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters)

Activists from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrate with slogans in protest of the designers use of fur, during the Paris Fashion Week, in front of the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, France, September 25, 2018. Placards read: “For a Fashion Week without fur”. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

The US' winner Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates during a flowers ceremony after the women's Super G event of the 2019 FIS Alpine Ski World Championships at the National Arena in Are, Sweden, on February 5, 2019. (Photo by Denis Balibouse/Reuters)