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

A woman covers her face as men throw colored powder at her during “Lathmar Holi” at the village of Barsana in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 9, 2014. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

A woman wades through a flooded village in the eastern state of Bihar, India August 22, 2017. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

Jan Agha, 49, an Afghan hunter, tries to catch his crane at a field in Bagram, Parwan province, Afghanistan on April 10, 2019. As the early morning light breaks over the plain north of Kabul, bird hunter Jan Agha checks his snares as he has done for the past 30 years, hoping to catch a crane, using a tethered bird to lure others down to the nets. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

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.

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)

Nepalese devotee women take a holy bath after offering prayers in Pashupathinath Temple premise during the month-long Swasthani Bratakatha festival, devoted to goddess Shree Swasthani in Kathmandu on February 8, 2016. Devotees recite Holy Scripture and women pray for wellbeing of their spouses throughout the month-long fast. (Photo by Skanda Gautam via ZUMA Wire)

This combination of two photos taken on July 5, 2014, shows the Aazzab family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Casablanca, Morocco. For the millions of Muslims abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset every day during Islam's holiest month of Ramadan, that first sip of water after a grueling fast is by far the most anticipated moment of the day. (Photo by Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP Photo)