A competitor walks on tightrope during a performance in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, China, May 7, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

Paramilitary policemen take part in a training in Chaohu, Anhui province, China December 28, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A bus goes through a flooded street in Wuhan, Hubei province, China July 6, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

Girls rest on stairs at the China Digital Entertainment Expo and Conference (ChinaJoy) in Shanghai, China July 27, 2017. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Typhoon Yolanda – also known as Haiyan – struck the central part of the country November 8, 2013, leaving at least 6,300 people dead and over four million displaced. A month after Typhoon Haiyan, the United Nations Population Fund estimates that 5,000 women were subjected to sеxual violence. A study by the Health and Human Rights online publication shows the majority of young girls and women in Manila’s sеx industry come from poverty-stricken areas – such as Leyte, Samar, Cebu and southern Mindanao – and enter trafficking through force, deception, economic desperation and psychological manipulation. (Photo by Hannah Reyes Morales/The Washington Post)

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.

A resident (unseen) uses a belt to get vegetables in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province on March 13, 2020. China reported just eight cases of the coronavirus on March 13, with no new domestic infections outside the epicentre of Hubei province. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

Lin Yufei and Gao Zijian of China perform in the gala exhibition on day three of the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating Cup of China at Huaxi Sports Center on November 8, 2020 in Chongqing, China. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)