Jean-François Leroy launched Visa Pour l’Image, the international photojournalism festival, in Perpignan in 1989. Before heading up the festival, Leroy was shooting reportage for the agency Sipa Press and also working for Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Photo-Revue and Photo Magazine. He is the chairman of the company Images Evidence. Photo: 2008 Visa d'or Feature: Brent Stirton. Conservation Rangers from an Anti-Poaching unit work with locals to evacuate the bodies of four Mountain Gorrillas killed in mysterious circumstances in the park, July 24, 2007, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Exclusive by Getty Images)

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.

An image produced by the Hubble telescope of the perfectly “edge-on” galaxy, or NGC 4013, March 1, 2001. This new Hubble picture reveals, with great detail, huge clouds of dust and gas extending along, as well as far above, the galaxy's main disk. NGC 4013 is a spiral galaxy, similar to the Milky Way, lying some 55 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. Viewed face-on, it would look like a nearly circular pinwheel, but NGC 4013 happens to be seen edge-on from our vantage point. Even at 55 million light-years, the galaxy is larger than Hubble's field of view, and the image shows only a little more than half of the object, albeit with unprecedented detail. (Photo Courtesy of NASA/Newsmakers)

A woman dressed in a cheongsam interacts gracefully with vibrant fish lanterns at Kwai Chai Hong, a heritage revival alley in Chinatown, on January 09, 2025, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kwai Chai Hong celebrates the Lunar New Year with an immersive art installation titled Bountiful Blessings, inspired by the idiom “Nian Nian You Yu”, which translates to “Wishing an Abundance Year After Year”, blending traditional fish lanterns with modern lights to inspire abundance and prosperity, inviting visitors to embark on a cultural journey of generosity and abundance for future generations. (Photo by Annice Lyn/Getty Images)

A house and garden is illuminated ahead of Christmas in Olching near Munich December 11, 2014. The house is decorated with more than 30,000 lights. Every year hundreds of houses across Germany are decorated by their owners with lights ahead of Christmas. (Photo by Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

A Chinese man wears a mask to protect against pollution as he waits at a red light while commuting to work in heavy smog on December 8, 2015 in Beijing, China. The Beijing government issued a 'red alert' for the first time since new standards were introduced earlier this year as the city and many parts of northern China were shrouded in heavy pollution. Levels of PM 2.5, considered the most hazardous, crossed 400 units in Beijing, lower than last week, but still nearly 20 times the acceptable standard set by the World Health Organization. The governments of more than 190 countries are meeting in Paris to set targets on reducing carbon emissions in an attempt to forge a new global agreement on climate change. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

The Northern Lights glow green in a spectacular light show above a field of trees frozen solid with snow. (Photo by Jaak Sarv/Solent News & Photo Agency)

French twins Thomas and Vincent (L) Seris take the tram in Bordeaux, November 12, 2014. Born with Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), the twins cannot be exposed to the sun and its ultraviolet (UV) light, which could provoke precocious cancers due to an autosomal recessive genetic disorder of DNA repair. Colloquially referred to as Children of the Night (Les Enfants de la Lune) the Seris twins are among 70 to 80 people in France who suffer from the genetic defect. The French association “Les Enfants de la Lune” reports that there are between five and ten thousand such cases in the world. Thomas and Vincent have been testing a new protective mask for the last year which is transparent and ventilated and developed by several hospitals in France. (Photo by Regis Duvignau/Reuters)