Winner. “I took this vertical image in the Quarry Bay district of Hong Kong during the dusk ‘blue hour’, when there was a perfect balance between the ambient light in the sky and the artificial lights of the high-rise residential buildings”. (Photo by Jatinder Heer/The Guardian)

A child plays with a plastic badminton racket in the old quarters of Delhi, India, March 3, 2016. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

A child sleeps under a table at the Jorkpan market in Sinkor district in Monrovia, Liberia on May 2, 2016. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP Photo)

Hao Han (8), Shaolin kung fu student and child actor. Shaolin Monastery, Henan. (Photo by Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer)

A child covered in mud on Lake Chokrak near the village of Kurortnoye, Leninsky District of Crimea in Russia on July 4, 2019. (Photo by Sergei Malgavko/TASS)

A child dressed as an Ewok character participates in a Star Wars parade in Mexico City, Saturday, October 15, 2022. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)

People walk under a light projection during the Shanghai International Light Festival at a shopping mall complex in Shanghai on September 22, 2025. (Photo by Jade Gao/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.