A woman wearing a burka, walks along a kans grass flower field, at Sarighat area in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on September 19, 2025. (Photo by Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters)

The city of Meroë laid undiscovered for two millennia before British archaeologist John Garstang excavated it in the early 20th century. Garstang took the radical decision to document his discoveries with photography – and immortalised an ancient world. “Meroë: Africa’s Forgotten Empire” is being shown until 14 September at Garstang Museum of Archaeology, Liverpool. Here: A group visiting the excavations at Meroë, including (from left) Midwinter Bey, director of Sudan Railways; Lord Kitchener; General Sir Francis Reginald Wingate, Sirdar of the Egyptian Army; Professor Archibald Sayce; John Garstang; and Lady Catherine Wingate, 1911. (Photo by Garstang Museum of Archaeology)

Istanbul-based Ali Gulec is a graphic artist with a difference. His surreal illustrations are like identikit drawings aiming to prosecute the material arts. Working on the margins of what is possible with his medium, Gulec's forms, figures, and situations are remarkable for their clarity and strength of purpose, and maintain an iconographic intensity that would make any rock band bereft of an album cover salivate with admiration.

Tourists watch the sunrise and pray outside a church on the summit of Mount Moses, near the city of Saint Catherine, in the Sinai Peninsula, south of Egypt, December 9, 2015. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

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)

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.

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