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.

Geese fight during the annual Geese Fight Day in the northern Serbian village of Mokrin, some 160km (100 miles) from Belgrade February 22, 2015. Every year in the last week of February, goose fights are held in the northern Serbian village of Mokrin. Left alone, male geese, or ganders, are unlikely to fight each other, hence why females are brought along for whose affections the ganders then fight until one or the other gives up. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

On the streets of Kunming, Yunnan Province, you can find odd couple – a dog and a cat who sits on his four-legged companion. They are Vantsay and Mimi. The owner of animals, a 42-year-old retired policeman Xu Jin is surprised with so strong friendship. “When I got the dog, and I began to take her for a walk, the cat became plaintive, – says the man. – So I bought a leash and began to take her too. Soon, however, the cat began to tire and quickly realized that it is much easier to ride on the back of a dog. ”

Jing Li (L) and her husband Ke Xu wear Tibetan traditional costumes as they pose for their wedding photos in front of Tibetan prayer flags at the Nianqing Tanggula mountain pass in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China November 18, 2015. Jing, 22, and her husband Ke Xu, 23, both from Shiyan in northwestern Hubei province live in Tibet for three year. The couple married last month. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

An ice covered entrance door to the international gene bank Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV) near Longyearbyen on Spitsbergen, Norway, October 20, 2015. Two consignments of crop seeds will be deposited next year in a “doomsday vault” built in an Arctic mountainside to safeguard global supplies. The vault, which opened on the Svalbard archipelago in 2008, is designed to protect crop seeds, such as beans, rice and wheat against the worst cataclysms of nuclear war or disease. (Photo by Anna Filipova/Reuters)

A man sleeps between tombstones in front of his single-room home on a hot night in the Cairo Necropolis, Egypt, October 13, 2015. In the sprawling Cairo Necropolis, known as the City of the Dead, life and death are side by side. Amid a housing crisis in Egypt, and with the population of greater Cairo estimated at about 20 million, people count themselves lucky to have a place to call home in the graveyards that date back hundreds of years. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

“Elat’ma, the Ryazan Oblast region of Russia. This small town is only 300 kilometers (186 miles) from modern Moscow but remains 60 years in the past, dominated by the spirit of socialism. The air of the communist ‘50s can be seen in the town’s architecture, celebrations and other occurrences. But neither its beauty nor its ties to a socialist past brought photographer Anastasia Rudenko to this village. Elat’ma is unique in that it functions as a town for mentally disabled people”. – Michelle Cohan via CNN. (Photo by Anastasia Rudenko)

“Life in War” (FotoEvidence Press) by Iranian photographer Majid Saeedi is probably the only book about Afghanistan that doesn’t show images of war. For ten years his camera photographed daily life in the context of war. His photographs reveal the humanity of a people living through decades of war. Here: Afghan men escape increasing summer temperatures by wading in the Qarga reservoir on July 9, 2010 in a suburb of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)