Technically, you don't even need to make the photons be absorbed by something - simply managing to get enough photons into a small enough space is one of the things which can cause spontaneous conversion, for example. (- Energy to matter is in reality slightly inaccurate, since you're essentially just taking particles carrying one kind of energy and turning them into particles carrying another kind of energy ... fermion to boson would be more apt way of putting it.) Also, I realized after posting the last OoC message that there is another, rather obvious case which not only suggests that creating matter is possible, but presumably simply goes forth and does it: lightning magic. Something that, I figure, follows the exact same laws you just described as the light-creating magic does. I also can't help to think that all at least semi-successful attempts to create matter inevitably resulted in blocks of pseudo-quarks, packed tight like the insides of a neuron star, and immediately after a subsequent explosion. Since, hey, how are middle-age Reniam people supposed to know that "solid" is actually mostly empty space within which sparse clumps of particles float? I'd think having wrong ideas about something can have even worse consequences than simply the lack of knowledge.
 - And yeah, at least as far as I am concerned, what you wrote makes perfect sense. 

Sort-of-relatedly, I have also been pondering over *why* would a soulless body die (let alone in a rather disturbing or gruesome manner) rather than just live on as a being without magic or afterlife, but I have the distinct feeling that this particular conversation would end up being more a combination of physics, biochemistry and ideology discussion and recounting of various more or less personal experiences and findings than something that directly relates to the RP if to be taken any farther from here ... and unquestionably interesting as those topics might be, I figure I should better not further distract you from pondering over the IC posts that much (well, and I might be diverting the OoC a bit *too* often to begin with ... possibly?). - I also had to stop myself from writing a rather elaborate comparison of magic as it is in Reniam and tergan magic (the most common and diverse form of magic in my fantasy worlds [second common is the "absolutes' magic", native to deities and a number of other super-beings ... then there are semi-realistic extreme examples of what is essentially conscious or semi-conscious control of one's body functions (I have mentioned such practices before), a number of things vaguely derived from various folklores/tales ... exotic non-mainstream stuff], uh, in any case, tergan magic is the thing which people almost exceptionlessly think of when the word "magic" is spoken, to recap) complete with the analysis of said differences somewhere along the way. (I don't know how interesting something like that would be to you all?)

@cthulu: Tried to send you a short e-mail from one of my main more general-purpose accounts so you'd have an e-mail address for contacting me, too (also will find out whether or not any spambots will try to eat it - it would be unfortunate if it happened when there was no other contact and it was not discovered before ... even if I personally do check the spam folder every now and then. Those pesky overzealous bots have attempted to smuggle aside contracts and other important stuff before.).