“Hippo Chase”. As we approached the camp the Selinda Reserve of northern Botswana our boat passed by a hippo resting in the water. I turned around to look back at the boat's wake and saw the hippo charging after us! The hippo must've been tired from an all-nighter because he was angry. He rose way up out of the water three times trying to chase our boat! He was coming at us with such force that he created a wake of his own. Photo location: Selinda Reserve of northern Botswana. (Photo and caption by Curtis Simmons/National Geographic Photo Contest)

What would superheroes do if they had a part time job? Well… besides fighting crime, the powers of most superheroes aren’t exactly very useful. Sure, Flash would make a great delivery boy, delivering the freshest pizza in the world, while Thor might turn out to be a great smith (though judging by the way he handles his mallet, it is very unlikely), but in the end of the day, all these things are pretty useless. It sure is hard being a superhero when you have no villains to catch; especially if the only superpower that you have is lighting yourself on fire. Reducing you to a mere job of being used as fuel for cooking grilled chicken. Besides, it’s not exactly useful for catching villains either, if you don't plan on burning them alive… (Photo by Chow Hon Lam)

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)

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 Buddhist monk uses a traditional needle to tattoo the body of a man at Wat Bang Phra in Nakhon Pathom province on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, March 18, 2016. Believers from across Thailand travel to the monastery to have their bodies adorned with tattoos and to pay their respects to the temple's master tattooist. They believe the tattoos have mystical powers, ward off bad luck and protect them from harm. (Photo by Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters)

A mother of a victim who was onboard sunken ferry Sewol, leaves a message on a desk used by her child at an empty classroom, which was preserved since the disaster, at Danwon high school during the second anniversary of the disaster in Ansan, South Korea, April 16, 2016. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A child uses an umbrella to avoid rain falling on a fire at the northern Greek border point of Idomeni, Greece, Monday, April 25, 2016. Many thousands of migrants remain at the Greek border with Macedonia, hoping that the border crossing will reopen, allowing them to move north into central Europe. (Photo by Gregorio Borgia/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.