Secret Spot...

QTVR ahead. Give some time to load and be sure you install QuickTime to view it

My vacation is over, and I'm already dying to start a new one. The summer is hovering over making it harder to breath even at some point. Fasting is putting my down a bit; it's the month of Rajab and like the previous 3 years, I usually start fasting in this month, and if I can, I would add the next month, Sha`ban, to it. Then comes Ramadhan. However tiresome I might get, Ramadhan will always get me down further even though the working hours are shortened.
Anyway, today I'm going to talk a bit about a special place that I planned to shoot in for a year or more even but never had the chance till few weeks back.

Secret Spot

This is not completely a secret spot, but I like to call it so because it is somehow deep and isolate. It is a piece of land from the beach isolated from the rest of the urban features around it with an artificial cliff of rocks. In high tide time, the water level gets really high that it is almost impossible to stand there and work for a long time (even though I did that already in fact!).

Das Licht Der Dunkelheims
The secret spot is not far from this location fair straight and down.

As stated in the image caption, that location isn't far from there. First of all, I paid a visit to the place with my regular intentions to study the location and see what I can do with it. This simple visit paid well with my Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens!

Washing Shore
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8, HDR, ISO100.

My single shot there back that night, Washing Shore, seemed to get the attention of the viewers. I planned it in such a way to make a curvy line leading the viewer from the bottom right corner to the top portion of the image in a curve. Two bad parts here though:

• The building on the left, which seems to weaken the image for me.
• The noise and processing later on.

 Because of the temperature, the noise was unavoidable with this HDR image done completely with long exposures (ranging from 8 minutes down to 30 seconds). The final result was some complicated smoothed and sharpened details all over the place, with some banding in the sky (after using Hue/Saturation adjustment layers and Selective Color adjustment layers). I'm still not sure how suitable this would be for printing but I won't be sacrificing money for the time being just for experimentation! 

The most terrifying aspect here was, not surprisingly though, the white balance. I admit; it was my mistake to not use the white balance disk to fix the white balance properly before shooting. I had to relay on many layer masks to adjust the colors in one place rather the others and so on which made it a lengthy work and process.

Seeing how things turned around for this single shot, I've decided to head the week after with somewhat an adventure mood. It's not easy for me to be in that mood, I tell ya! But first things first; I had to check the low tide timing and I was lucky to get it accordingly for the weekend after midnight. The hardest step though was to get down through this rocky slope, which might be an easy task for a sportsman, but not for me, specially in the darkness. Retinitis Pigmentosa hits severely in the darkness.

Mare Lunare

The work began when my feet hit the ground. It wasn't easy as I didn't carry my LED lights and only my bulky flashlight. Also, setting up the tripod and the bulky VR-head on such soft sand was troublesome and did consume a considerable time. I've found out also that the VR-head needed some tightening in some positions as some screws were getting lose! Pretty dangerous working conditions if you ask me - imagine losing one of those small screws in such soft sand!

The Hanging Cliff
(Hour Glass)

The work was done completely using the Bulb mode, and took around two hours. Yes, and all of that was done without having a book to read during these long exposures; which ranged from 2 to 4 minutes. Believe me if I say, going around the tripod in such soft sand is not an easy task, and needless to say that walking around must be done carefully so that the level of the tripod doesn't change while shooting the panorama.

Things went smoothly, but very lengthy (and at some point, pretty boring I have to say!). The rewards were as you can see in Mare Lunare and The Hanging Cliff (Hour Glass), and more to come in few. In somewhat a strange turn of events, the Nadir point wasn't that easy to merge into the panorama but that was fixed in a hurry with some cloning. In fact I had to do some cloning in each panorama projection I've made so far.

Processing-wise, there was a lot to do; really a lot to do. This is because every single RAW file (total 41) in this panorama was checked for the histogram to ensure it's alright histogram-wise at least and no cut in highlights or shadows. All the files were converted to TIFF and the stitching process started from there. The final result in each projection needed also lot of work in Photoshop because the colors needed to be emphasized; the pure output was simply dull with not much strong contrast. Probably you've already noticed the green water surface in the panoramas. To do this, I had to use some layer masks and plenty of delicate work in selecting the water surface only. This is because without any change in the color of the water, one would deem it all as one with the sky. The water itself looked faintly green and hardly noticeable, thus the color cast was increased using Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

Skyscope

Probably my favorite projection of all, is the tunnel view projection; Skyscope. The texture of the sand acted naturally as a guideline somewhat to the center of the image. Here, specifically, I didn't change the water color cast to make it merge with the sky a bit and form semi-circle. I think adding a third color to this combination of yellow and blue (and bit of magenta is already in the clouds) would make things diverse in a bad way.I've tried, as well, to create a slight twirl in the outside rim of the image to make a feeling of something sucking into the depth of the image (and to do this you have to work in 8bit format rather than 16bit), but the process got complicated and I decided not to waste more time with this.

Planeta Litus

The planet projection of this panorama wasn't much dynamic like its cousin Skyscope, except for some faint clouds lines which somehow acted as field lines around some planet. In case you were wondering about the long white line in all of the panoramas above, this is just a light trail and flare from the lamp posts as it seems. 

Schwimmend am Höll

The last projection in the series is a wide-view projection, Schwimmend am Höll, which appeared to me as a floating island in a surreal view with a sky that seemed like burning in flames. Originally, I've stitched this panorama in a large format (11,000 pixels wide) in order to be cropped later into a suitable size. However, after looking at it for few minutes, it did appear to me as if the sides were essential despite the featureless space there. I think without such space, the look won't be that of a floating island balancing itself on a tip of a hill... am I exaggerating here? Ah well.

Ironically, all of these panoramas were refused from some stock website for "too much processing" - probably these people never heard of something called panoramas ever, and processing is the core of panoramas. Anyway, at the end of my work, the sun was starting to cut out through the horizon and the atmosphere began splashing with violet hues, and I didn't want to miss that chance...

Good Morning Kuwait (VIII)
Rokinon 8mm fisheye, f/8(?), HDR, ISO100.

The exposures ranged from 2 minutes and down for one stop each time till 1 second. This was somehow essential because of the city lights and balancing the atmosphere with these lights is somehow impossible with a single exposure. The final image had strong artifacts caused by chromatic aberrations (one thing that I really hate about Rokinon 8mm in such situations) - but after a tedious work in Photoshop I did somehow reduce the effect of these colored lines at the edges of the buildings.

QTVR

With this hard work that lasted for two hours, it would be a shame not to do a QTVR for this place, specially that the nadir point was relatively easy to fix.

If you look to the top above (zenith point), you will notice some strange mark in the sky, and the truth I'm not sure what is this either. However, as I didn't really use a zenith slide in the panorama (even though I did take it), probably this mark is the result of cloning the gap in the original flat spherical panorama, which is Mare Lunare. The gap was so small to even think of adding the zenith slide to the whole panorama (and cause a mess to the whole set!).

Delays

I keep telling myself that I will be facing my projects soon but I'm not sure how much soon is soon in my own timing. There is Geltani, and IPA check up for Arabic (which is pretty important for me). In the meantime, the nearest thing I could think of right now is at least to try and translate UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), which is usually used with most languages on Omniglot (both constructed and natural). With that, I would probably do a voice recording to see and examine closely how the (new) conlang of Geltani does sound; needless to say, it is a real test for the transliteration system (or codification so to say) that is to be used or transcribing this conlang as well. Time management is one major leak in my personal life, which is full of leaks already...

On the other hand I've been testing some sounds of Arabic and trying to figure out precisely where my tongue resides in some of them and how the air articulates in and out of my mouth. Well, been acting (more) as a maniac while doing this while driving or being alone in the office. Still I didn't catch the whole concept completely in fact. The major difficulty resides in two letters: [ض] and [ظ], which, sometimes, are both transliterated as "Z" from the fact that many "dialects" of Arabic today do so. The IPA version provided in Omniglot seems to be on the same trend and hence, it's not convincing for me as an Arabic speaker - Yes, I don't speak the standard Arabic in my everyday life, but it is the supposedly lingua franca between all Arabs, and yet, it is the formal and the prestigious form of Arabic for letters, communications, and the media. My other blog is in standard Arabic as well and I cannot ever imagine myself writing something to the public in one dialect of Arabic, and say this is Arabic.

Finale

One book is off my list now. The Extraordinary Everyday Photography by Brenda Tharp and Jed Manwaring is somehow just another version of another book I had before; The Contemplative Photography. It is in fact a mix between contemplative aspects and technical aspects about the camera and some tips and tricks to do some shots. Never the less, I did like reading it, and specially the last few chapters which are related to dusk and dawn, and night photography.

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

The book on the queue line is Optics and Optical Instruments, which looks from the few pages I've read so far - looks that it is a students' book; and this is good! Exactly what I was looking for. My previous reading about lenses and their design made me somehow in a status of stalemate; I couldn't comprehend much of what was there, specially the mathematics involved. It is an engineering book of the advanced type which requires some background. However, Optics and Optical Instruments might look old from the shape of the graphics in it (obviously handwritten) but so far so good with the body of text. But that doesn't mean consuming the context is going to be an easy task, specially without someone forcing me to "study" so to say.

Away from books, I've been carrying a load; a load of emotions and responsibilities. Probably more of the former than the latter. I'm taking it seriously in my mind now to spend a vacation, a real one, abroad. Ireland for a third time is in my mind as well. Not sure when exactly but the usual timing would be between September and October if I can. I have to settle things down first, and inform everyone about my plans so they would prepare to take care of Mom. My mind is fluctuating between a new location or visiting the first location I've been to back in 2009. I think the latter is my choice for now, because I have better equipments now, and I don't want to miss the beauty of Lough Corrib (Loch Coirib).

I'm starting to feel numb to almost everyone now. Asking myself, why should I care...

All Eyes On Me...

It was one of these weeks that I could call busy. Yet, however, I'm not so satisfied about it because I've found myself too lazy to do a single thing. Seems it's the effect of summer. I've just realized that I had been in almost continuous activity for around a year, without real vacations. Summer had its toll on me and I'm seriously growing sick of it. Temperatures are going down slowly, yet it is still hot. For example, instead of being 46^oC (~115^oF) at around 11:00 a.m., it is now in the range of 41-42^oC (~106-108^oF) around the same time. Where are you winter; I need you badly.
Anyway, after some struggles, I was able to do some work with my camera this week, trying to do more experiments with the IR Filter which I didn't use much. This time, however, not outdoors, but indoors.
I've discovered last week that I've completed (unintentionally!!) the 3^rdalbum for images from Staten Island. I didn't work for some time with these images. At the end of this post, I'll post a slideshow of this album.

All Eyes On Me

Source Amazon

 Seems reading some of my old books did not go in vain after all. Going through Portrait Photography and The Photographer's Guide to Making Money by Karen Dórame did inspire me a bit to do some experiments in combination with the IR filter, and with car windshield's shade. Yes. Car shades.
The tip for using a car shade as a reflector is taken specifically from Karen's book, but I've developed this idea further for my own needs. I will explain stuff later in this post. So, what's going on here? A book, a car shade, and IR filter? This life is filled with silly stuff, no?
The first idea was to use the shade as a reflector, specifically for the hair light. Well, partially inspired by reading into portrait photography for a while. However, in this venture, I've tried to accommodate this the infrared filter for some "toying" around. Remember that portrait photography is not my cup of tea, and I must add something to it that excites me to some extent, and IR filter was the solution!

Side View of the shade on tripod and speedlites on monopod pointing into it.
Don't ask how I balanced this monopod.

Frontal view of the set.
Hope you don't mind the mess!

The first trial to try the shade was to take a head shot of myself (as usual). Because of this, I have to stay a bit further away from the camera, making holding a cable and checking a portable monitor a bit of a hard task, and with IR filter it is just awesomely... difficult. Thus, for this reason, most of the shots taken in this trial are soft and out of focus a bit. Increasing the depth here (i.e. f-number) would result in darker images. The speedlites here are reflected and not directed, making their task harder even with IR filter on lens. However, some poses were fine and I might consider doing the whole set again if possible; some people did like those shots despite the soft focus.

Infra Me I
Canon EF 50mm, f/4, 0.5sec, ISO500

Infra Me II
Canon EF 50mm, f/4, 0.5sec, ISO500

There were other shots of course but probably these 2 were the best of them. The differences in the tones here is majorly because of the different approaches in dealing with IR images. I've tried to process these images in DPP (Canon's software) and also Photoshop (or the ACR) but I have to say that it was such a hard task because of the darkness of the images relatively. In outdoors shots I was able to get some bright areas and correcting the white balance was an easy shot somehow with DPP, as Photoshop didn't do a good job in that manner. However, indoors proved to be something totally different for IR shots, and I had to surf further looking for answers and tips on how to process these images digitally, specially for camera that are not converted for IR photography (i.e. with normal unmodified sensor). This step, anyway, was looked upon after my next trials for eye shots.

Second set for eye shot trial, with car shade torn in the middle.

I've been dreaming of having a ring light or ring flash for a while. Anyway, an idea struck me again since I've got a car shade of two circular sides. I've cut through the middle and divided the shade into 2 parts: the first would act as a reflector, and the second would act as a ring light. To do the ring light job, I've made a hole in the middle of the shade part (as shown above) which would be suitable somehow for a Ø58mm lens. This cut was done in a haste without much measurements like I usually do, but seems it worked fine! The idea is to reflect the speedlites onto this reflector and the light should reflect back on the subject, which is in this case, my eye. The close distance between the subject, the speedlites and the reflector, made it possible for me to use a high f-number and ensure the shot is sharp despite the slight movement of my body. Remember: the LiveView or what you see in the viewfinder is always the scene at largest f-number. Thus, it is kind of hard to judge the sharpness as the body moves in front of the lens but with high f-number, all is OK and a slight shake won't hurt a bit!

Erster Blick
Canon EF 50mm + Extension Tube, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

Zweiter Blick
Canon EF 50mm + Extension Tube, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

Despite the many shots I've taken, I thought that one was enough to be processed in various levels and ways. Erster Blick and Zweiter Blick are actually one shot but one with the Clarity option being low (soft) while the other was maximum (harsh). Of course there were some processing in between to adjust colors and clone out some overexposed areas before uploading but the general criteria here was the Clarity issue. In fact, this shot was intended as a test shot before attaching my infrared filter on the lens.
Intriguing as it may be, the reflection of the shade into my eye. This phenomena, despite its simplicity, it was something I never thought of. This reflection can open up a gate of other possibilities and art venues! We have to think about some stuff to do in the near future I believe.

Erster Blick (B&W)

Zweiter Blick (B&W)

As usual with any eye shot done before, I've went through the process of converting them to B&W as you can see above. In all these images, I greatly miss the NeatImage plugin which can do some job automatically somehow with some nice results. NoiseNinja, despite its nice work, it can leave a dilemma in the mind for what's right and what's wrong. I have to say because of these images now, the statistics of my Flickr reported nearly 900 hits that day!
Just before I leave it completely, I couldn't resist the temptation to "edit" this shot further instead of just enhancing colors and tones. That is, adding some features to the iris and doing some work with the colors. Some work was done, and Dritter Blick was produced.

Dritter Blick

The Dritter Blick is actually based on the Zweiter Blick but in this shot, beside lowering the saturation, a Curves layer was used and the black point was set based on the pupil color, thus adding some harsh contrast. As for the reflections in the eyes, probably if the speedlites were closer to my head, the reflection would be more even across the diameter of the iris.

OK. You might be wondering now where does the IR fit in all of this. In fact, all the images above were a result of a single test shot! After testing the light level, I've fixed the IR filter on the lens and started taking pictures (depending on the portable monitor in front of me) trying to find an adequate position and changing the distances of the speedlites and their angle of incidence.

Infra Auge
Canon EF 50mm, f/22, 125^-1sec, ISO500.

All shots were dark and I had a problem fixing their white balance in DPP and ACR. The main problem in fixing the white balance is, there is no real reference point to take the white balance from Usually, in a landscape shot, the white balance is majorly a matter of the green leaves on trees or the grass, or the sky itself. Here, there are no real reference point to depend on in setting the white balance.
I did a bit of surfing and I've learned some techniques not known to me before, specifically for working with digital IR images in RAW (majorly some method to expand the white balance range). What I discovered during my little research is the fact that, in general, the matter of processing IR images, either indoors or outdoors scenes, it is mainly a matter of art and sensuality. You have to imagine yourself to be a designer and work with your images in what you think is proper. There is no right method or a wrong one. There are just some basics and the rest is a matter of processing in Photoshop or other editing programs, after doing initial adjustments in ACR. IR do sound like a fertile soil for artistic venues.
As for the shots themselves, they were (naturally) too dark despite the fact that the speedlites were on full power. I didn't want to increase the ISO further as I know the annoying noise level would make a headache but probably I should have loosen the f-number a bit, say to f/16 or even f/11 instead of leaving it to f/22. Anyway, from all the shots taken, Infra Auge was probably the least in headache. Notice I said "the least." Generally, all of them were a headache!
The blue tone of the image is a result of channel swapping, that is exchanging the places of the red and the blue channels together. The noise level because of the ISO and because of the increment in the exposure level was beyond imagination, and despite the fine look in a small size image like the one above, the real image is not as smooth as it appears here. In fact, even the focus was smoothed out while trying to clean the noise of the image. Here also, to reduce the amount of the color noise (which was specially apparent on the pupil) I've used the Curves adjustment layer again and setting the black point from the pupil itself. The contrast increased and I had to sacrifice some tiny details in other areas which became darker. The iris was brightened out wit dodging techniques. Surprisingly, some say they like this one the most from the series! I'm not expecting such image to be accepted in stock agencies anyway.

Linguamechanic

This week, I've spent some more time (at work) with my Geltani and also reading more into the Turkish lessons. I'm trying to settle with my opinions of what features to take from the Turkish language to implement into Geltani. Apparently Turkish is complex (relatively speaking) and Geltani has to be simpler in form and expressions (and it is already logographic!).
Meanwhile, I'm still working slowly on phonic values for the sounds of Geltani and assigning more possible combinations of vowels and consonants. The progress is slow, and it made me delve (back again) more into the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), and trying to figure more about the sounds it includes. What I discovered here is, somehow, that the IPA is somehow too precise that it makes some confusion. When I checked the phonetics (or Phonology) of the Arabic language, there seem to be more than one representation for the symbol for the simple sound of [خ] (equivalent to Scottish and German "CH"). The only different is the amount of air probably and the friction position (I leave the anatomical names inside the mouth for doctors here!). I believe this is somehow unnecessary. Once you learn a language, the sounds should flow along even with some minor changes in the air flow - if this change was significant, probably our ancestors would have discovered that earlier and decided to make a separation in symbols for such phenomena.
Similarly, in Ottoman Turkish, when it was written with Arabic script, there was no real distinction between "V," "U," "Ü," "O," "Ö." Most of these sounds in modern Turkish were represented simply by the letter [و], and only when the diacritics were used in the body of the text some distinction is made between some of these sounds. I think the Ottomans back then didn't give much importance to these differences in vowels because the general speech was understood and the tonal values would flow depending on the surrounding vowels and consonants in the word. This is apparent in some Turkish words in modern Turkish in which the last letter would change according to the additions. For example, the "p" in [kalp] (heart) would change to "b" with some additions like [kalbım] (my heart). Just to note, "Kalp" is originally an Arabic word and in Arabic it ends with "B" [ب], and only in modern Turkish it would end with "P". Turkish is full of such words that change their ends from light to heavy sounding ones. The question remains though: is it necessary to write and document such changes? Probably a native Turkish speaker would, naturally, end such words with light sounds as "P" (and some others) because of the nature of the vowels and consonants the proceed this consonant, thus even if we wrote it as "B", a Turk would still say it as "P" because it is more natural to his native tongue. The philosophy of precision is under question: is it really necessary to add some complexion to the written words?
In the meantime, I had as well some crazy idea to make an Arabic-based script for Turkic languages, including Ottoman, but this time it would be more to be an alphabetic script rather than an abjadic one. The Uyghur script is already in that way but it causes much confusion, at least to me, because the laws of written Arabic are broken (concerning what letters to be joined at the end and which ones to not be so). Probably I would call it, UniTurkic. The idea is just at the beginning and I need more time to make it grow. For the time being I shall be busy with my Geltani, at least.

Finale

I need a vacation. This is the bottom line of my life in the current time. I do plan to have some leave from work but I'm hesitated. Such leave might give me a break from work, but I'm still faced with duties for Mom, specially after planting another valve in her arm for dialysis.I think this will be the situation for a really long time, so I'm trying to prepare for it psychologically.

source: B&H

One of the things that are on my list to be ordered after some time (after I finish some few debts) is the RoundFlash which is something cheap (compared to the ring flash) and works with the regular speedlite on camera. Probably this what inspired to make the experiment above with the car shade! Anyway, it's on the list with other stuff. I'm considering having another lens to my collection but the matter is still under consideration and I'm not really sure if I do need one. I have something for prime lenses for the time being and wouldn't like to add a zoom lens to my list. Also on my list, a new tripod. However, that would be another story for another post probably.

I need some time to recollect my thoughts about my private life for the time being. It seems to be more disastrous than before under the current circumstances. Scariest of all is the fact that, I don't know where the end of the tunnel lies.
I leave you now with a slideshow for images of the 3^rd album from Staten Island, New York.

Alexander 6, V17.

Today, I decided to make a major leap in the way I transliterate Ayvarith text (i.e. putting the pronunciation into Latin letters). This change will affect the speed of my work in typing it (I use OpenOffice V3.1 currently), and also, it will help somehow with some places where some underline options are not available, like here in this blog text box. I will have to bear this in mind the next time I set my own homepage again for Ayvarith.

They are mainly 2 specific changes for the transliteration of (Fricative-Pharyngeal-Unvoiced) [IPA] which represents the Arabic equivalent of "ح". The other change was for (Plosive-Alveolar-Unvoiced, Pharyngealized), which represents the Arabic equivalent of "ط". Before this time, I used to put them as underlined-H, and underlined-T, respectively. But now, I do prefer to use "ħ" and "ŧ" respectively. Although the second symbol was assigned previously for the sound of (Plosive-Retroflex-Unvoiced), which I like to call sometimes the "Indian T," but now I think I will assign the underlined version for this sound instead. The Indian-T sound has a symbol in Ayvarith, but I deem it as some voice used for foreign words that are not of original Ayvaric roots. Of course it is a conlang, but I do make up the words in a specific patterns related to Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic. Foreign words here are meant to be words that are adapted directly from the other languages and embedded directly into the Ayvarith context, like "Electron" for example which was transliterated into "iliçŧarú" (the underlined letters here are pasted not typed directly into this box, that's why they show up here but I can't type it!) - before this time. Such letters are not used much, thus I think it is better to use the underline for such voices and letters rather than a unique separate letter. I better reserve such unique letters for the Ayvarith itself. The whole system of transliteration seems to be changed right now.

Today, I played a lovely prank for fun... on myself of course and nothing else. I had to go to the DHL facility twice to give my shipment to Ireland of printed photographs. The first time I went I just discovered that I don't have the address paper with me, thus I had to drive back to my work place and get the paper and back again to the DHL. A LOVELY trip in the streets of Kuwait. I don't want to talk about how many accidents I was going to do. The place sucks really, I just wonder what kind of engineer that designed such a place. In the meantime, I hope the shipment is delivered peacefully to the Waterfront owner with no delays or any bad events along the way, like the previous shipment (the one that got broken on the way). I was disappointed a little though because there were no special offers for shipments to Ireland, regarding it is the month of St Patrick day. I've seen special discounts for the national days of Australia, Morocco, Egypt and some others, but I didn't see anything for Ireland. I wonder though, do they reckon that this country exists!?

I finally got an email about my shipment, and it was finally processed by this morning and given to the UPS. I paid extra money just to have a fast delivery to my US mailbox and then what? I got a delay in the process itself. Ah well. Let's see how much I'm going to pay now for the delivery of these items (providing no problems with the stupid customs office, or inspection).

__________
385. O dear king, they say those Ayvars live for a thousand
386. and never die until one of them get a thousand kid
387. the pious of them is better than an angel
388. and the devilish of them is worse than a devil
389. they posses the knowledge of all the languages
390. and they inhabited the Earth long before us humans
391. from their knowledge, all sciences come out
392. and from their prayers you can hear the wind's whistle
393. in every full moon and on the tenth of Ráfi
394. they know the meaning of time and how it started
395. and they know the meaning of wisdom
396. then when Ikilis finished his speech about Ayvars
397. Alexander asked him: they are not human beings?
398. and Ikilis replied back: yes they are, but were here before us,
399. O hero, you have been to many lands and battles,
400. do you believe indeed such legends of old?
401. then Alexander looked with an affirmative look and said
402. "you do not know what is awaiting,
403. and be sure I did not  come here by my own,
404. so tell me O good man, anything you know in your legends,
405. about the way where they live, or how to find them?
406. I roamed the lands and dreams did not stop,
407. I have to find them even if it was my death,
408. there are secrets that I should know"