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)

A replica of the Wall-E character is remotely controlled with a mobile phone by Bolivian student Esteban Quispe, 17, in Patacamaya, south of La Paz, December 10, 2015. Quispe built the Wall-E robot using materials he obtained from a rubbish dump in the town located in the Andean highland region. He hopes to mechanize agriculture in Patacamaya by making use of robots that operate on solar energy, Quispe told Reuters. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

A picture made available on 21 July 2016 shows a visitor having a meal from a toilet bowl at “Jamban Cafe” (lit. Toilet Cafe) in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, 16 July 2016. The cafe was created by a sanitation expert for education purposes to stress the importance of using a dedicated toilet and keeping it clean to prevent disease. (Photo by EPA/Purwanto)

A woman uses a tree branch to fight a fire on the road leading to the village of Parada, near Mortagua, northern Portugal, Thursday, August 11 2016. Firefighters in Portugal are battling multiple blazes fed by brush in a hot, dry summer for a sixth straight day. Major fires have also been raging in northwestern Spain and southern France. (Photo by Sergio Azenha/AP Photo)

Men help a woman affected by tear gas used by National Police officers to disperse a demonstration of supporters of Fanmi Lavalas political party in the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, November 22, 2016. (Photo by Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters)