A man works inside a bakery in the rebel-controlled area of Maaret al-Numan town in Idlib province, Syria December 17, 2015. (Photo by Khalil Ashawi/Reuters)

Lush green rice terraces sprawl over 2,200 hectares of mountainside ready to be harvested. These stunning images, captured by photographer Saravut Whanset, show the incredible terraces throughout the course of the day, including at sunrise and sunset. Workers tend to the fields, with each terrace between 1 and 1.5 metres wide, while wooden huts stand on stilts on the mountainside. The beautiful panoramic pictures were taken in Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam, with the fields located at the foot of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range, 1,000 metres above sea level. (Photo by Saravut Whanset/Solent News and Photo Agency)

A young girl plays on the glass bottom platform of the Oriental Pear TV Tower as she travels with her family on the second day of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, also known as Spring Festival, in Shanghai, China on February 18, 2018. Some 287 million tourists travelled in China during the first four days of the week-long Chinese Lunar New Year holiday, up 11.1 percent from the same period last year, new data showed Sunday. (Photo by Imaginechina/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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.

Nepalese Hindu devotees take part in a bathing ritual on the last day of the month-long Swasthani Festival in the Hanumante River at Bhaktapur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on February 22, 2016. Devotees mark the Swasthani Festival with fasting, and with women in particular undertaking rituals in the hope of a prosperous life for her family and conjugal happiness. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

Students dressed as Hindu Lord Shiva, also known as Nataraja, the Lord of Dancers, during a religious event in Mumbai, India, August 30, 2018. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)

A worker collects water chestnuts from a pond on the outskirts of Ajmer on October 3, 2023. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/AFP Photo)

An Indian labourer sifts coloured powder, known as “gulal”, to be used during the forthcoming spring festival of Holi, inside a factory at Fulbari village on the outskirts of Siliguri on March 6, 2017. Holi, the popular Hindu spring festival of colours is observed in India at the end of the winter season on the last full moon of the lunar month, and will be celebrated on March 13 this year. (Photo by Diptendu Dutta/AFP Photo)