Field Quanta Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [3]

Gribbin (1989: 259):

The electromagnetic field around an electron can create virtual photons, provided they are short-lived and do not stray far from home.  The rule of thumb, from the uncertainty principle, is that such a virtual photon can move only half its own wavelength away from the electron before it must turn back and be reabsorbed.  Longer wavelengths correspond to less energy, so less energetic virtual photons stray farther from the electron.  The result is a quantum picture of the electron as a charged region embedded in a sea of virtual photons, which get more energetic the closer you approach the electron itself.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, the "creation" of virtual photons by the electromagnetic field around an electron is the instantiation of the electromagnetic potential of an electron as a photon, in accordance with the probabilities of that potential. 

On this picture, an electron is an instance of electron potential (field) that is surrounded by instances (virtual photons) of electromagnetic potential (field), the energy of latter decreasing with distance from the electron.