This is a montage of the best bits from my images of the transit of Mercury on 9 May. My local area was generally clouded out so I'd gone on a two and a half hour trek with all the kit to a relative in Lincolnshire, where the Sun was predicted to be at good visibility for most if not all the transit.

 

Top left is a photo of the kit all in action, I'm standing next to the Quark and 70mm refractor on my modified iOptron camera mount carrying the 70mm refractor. The Canon 7D and zoom lens fitted with a solar filter used for the lower left image are to the left in the photo. Also in there somewhere are two laptops, various power cables and adaptors and a mono USB3 CCD. One of the more important bits of kit turned out to be the umbrella, both for seeing what the cameras were tracking by shielding the laptops and keeping me from turning to a crisp under the strong sunlight!

 

The three timed images spaced diagonally are the best upside down refractor images filmed through the USB3 CCD of the transit. The first image is my earliest one and I did try to get further images as late as 18:04 UT, 37 minutes before the transit was due to end, but thin cloud and local trees defeated my attempts to capture a clean stackable image at that point. The middle image is a linked mosaic working my way in from the right hand edge of the Sun until reaching Mercury. Each image in the mosaic is a stack of around 600 best frames from a ten-second burst at 100-125 frames per second.

 

Peter

Old parallel printer connector and USB 3 for Macro Mondays evolution

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 35.217+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on January 19th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1200088744 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,101st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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**** This frame was chosen on March 6th 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #169. This is my 164th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.233+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Five metres, at 11:34am on Tuesday 24th September 2019 off Whiffin Spit Road at Whiffin Spit, situated between the Sooke Harbour and Juan de Fuca Strait. It is a natural breakwater and part of the Quimper Park with views across Juan de Fuca and the Sooke Basin, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The beach, trails and breakwater are all situated of T'sou-ke First Nations land in T'sou-ke 2 (Sooke 2) land.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 24mm Shutter speed: 1/250s Aperture f/16.0 iso640 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held with Nikon VR Vibration Reduction enabled. Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 21m 25.16s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 43m 19.00s

ALTITUDE: 5.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 94.1MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 49.02MB

     

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 31.613+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on November 18th 2018

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1067756924 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,551st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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**** This frame was chosen on June 17th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #61. This is my 128th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 31.700+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of One hundred twenty five metres at 11:52:32am on Thursday 8th November 2018, off Biskupstungnabraut 35 and Haukadalsvegur F333 at Gesir, a geothermal location where a geyser erupts every eight to ten minutes. The location is at Hafnartún, Selfoss, Iceland.

  

This is the main Geyser in the field which erupts approximately every six to ten minutes or so. This series of 9 photographs captures the split second (actually 0.03 of a second)that it takes for the Geyser to erupt and subside. The water is sucked slighlty back down into the ground before suddenly climbing back out under pressure and then exploding into the sky.

 

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Nikon D850 Focal length 24mm. Hand held with Nikkor VR vibration reduction enabled on Normal setting. Shutter speed 1/1000s Aperture f/4.5 iso1000 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 (FX). Colour space. Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 64d 18m 46.20s

LONGITUDE: W 20d 18m 3.10s

ALTITUDE: 125.0m

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 42.70MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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**** This frame was chosen on January 28th 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #183. This is my 159th photograph to be selected.

  

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 34.800+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Two metres, at 18:56pm on Saturday 18th September 2019 around sunset off Gowlland point road on the shoreline at Poets Cove on South Pender Island in British Columbia, Canada.

  

Here we look towards the edge of Bedwell harbour which is both a marina and a water aerodrome with a customes border for vessels entering Canada from abroad.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 55mm Shutter speed 1/100s Aperture f/16.0 iso250 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 44m 48.95s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 13m 38.78s

ALTITUDE: 2.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 42.20MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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**** This frame was chosen on April 28th 2018 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #283. This is my 101st photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 17.950 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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This Ten seconds long exposure was taken on the banks of the River Cray at an altitude of Thirty metres at 04:06am on Thursday 22nd March 2018, in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:58am),off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England.

  

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Nikon D850 28mm Ten seconds long exposure f/4.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Manfrotto 327RC2 Magnesium Ball Head. Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 18.90s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 15.50s

ALTITUDE: 30.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB (NEF 92.2mb)

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.20MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

.

.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 35.627+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on March 30th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1215318452 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,141st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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**** This frame was chosen on April 1st 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #226. This is my 181st photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.635+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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This Two seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of Six metres, at 06:56am on Monday 23rd September 2019 around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, bewteen the boat jetty and Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in Sidney, and Work commenced on the pier in 1993 with Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 70mm Shutter speed: Two seconds long exposure Aperture f/16.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150Con adapter for Lee 100 rings.Lee 100 67mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) Neutral density Graduated resin filter. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 53.35s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.03s

ALTITUDE: 3.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.4MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.10MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

ZWO ASI585MC Pro USB3 Cooled Color Camera

Apertura CarbonStar 150 Imaging Newtonian with 0.95x Coma Corrector

ZWO AM3 Harmonic Drive Equatorial Mount and Tripod

42 subs 180 second each no darks, bias or flats

This is my new hobby and actually this is the fifth Astro photography ever

Any constructive critic- appreciated

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**** This frame was chosen on March 30th 2016 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #490. This is my 85th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 15.0 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Eleven metres, at 07:34am on Tuesday 2nd February 2016, off Birdcage Walk and Horse Guards Road in the grounds of St James's Park.

  

Early morning and a light at the foot of the tree illuminated the trunk and branches against the cloudy dawn sky.

  

Situated in the City Of Westminster, the Park spans twenty three Hectares and is the oldest of the Royal Parks of London, with a variety of visiting and nesting birds that include Ducks, Canada Geese and Pelicans.

  

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Nikon D800 85mm 1/20s f/2.8 iso250 RAW (14 bit) Handheld. AF-S Single point focus . Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Auto Active D-lighting.

  

Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8G. Jessops 66mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 16.09s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 7m 51.60s

ALTITUDE: 11.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED FILE: 33.13MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

  

USB3.0 ASI120S Mono Astro Camera with C9.25 @ prime focus.

 

12 x 1280X960

 

Michael L Hyde (c) 2015

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I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 32.221+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on January 16th 2019

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1092590682 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,633rd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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.

**** This frame was chosen on July 19th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #251. This is my 135th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 32.240+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fourteen metres at 15:37pm on Saturday 10th November 2018, off sæbraut 41 and Ingolfsgarour where it crosses the Sculpture and shore walk beside the harbour area of Reykjavik. Here we are looking South-west towards the mountain range between Grundarhverfi and Mosfellsbær, twelve kilometres east of the Capital.

  

Reykjavik is Iceland's capital city, and the most populous at 124,847.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 28mm. Hand held with Nikkor VR vibration reduction enabled on Normal setting. Shutter speed 1/500s Aperture f/4.0 iso100 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space. Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 64d 9m 0.90s

LONGITUDE: W 21d 55m 53.60s

ALTITUDE: 14.0m

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.3MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 26.80MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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**** This frame was chosen on August 27th 2018 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #341. This is my 105th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 17.950 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Thirty eight metres at 18:40pm on Thursday 23rd August 2018, off Place Joffre and Avenue Emile Acollas, in the grounds of Champ de Mars, looking towards the Tour Eiffel located at Champ de Mars, 5 Avenue Anatole France, 75007 in Paris, France.

  

The Champ de Mars (Field of Mars), is a large park located in the Seventh arrondissement between the Eiffel Tower to the Northwest and Ecole Militaire to the Southeast. It was named after Campus Martius in Rome, Italy. It originally measured 42 hectares, but was reduced by architect Jeran-Camille Fromige for the 1890 World Exposition.

  

The Eiffel Tower was originally designed by Gustave Eiffel and constructed between 1887-1889 as the entrance to the worlds fair in that year. It is now the worlds most visited paid monument, standing 324 metres tall (1,063ft) with three floors and eight lifts and was the tallest building in the world from 1889 to 1930.

     

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Nikon D850 31mm. Hand held. 1/400s f/5.6 iso100 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space. Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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.

  

LATITUDE: N 48d 51m 14.00s

LONGITUDE: E 2d 17m 59.30s

ALTITUDE: 38.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 18.70MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

**** This frame was chosen on June 28th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #256. This is my 131st photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 31.900+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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.

  

Photograph taken at an altitude of Twenty metres, at 10:48am on Thursday June 20th 2019, in the grounds of Hyde park, a Grade 1 listed Royal Park (the largest of) of London. Spanning an area of 350 acres, the park is divided by the Serpentine and the Long water lakes, and was created by King Henry VIII in 1536 as hunting ground. It opened to the puiblic in 1637 and was extensively improved under Queen Caroline in the early righteenth century. The Great exhibition for which the Crystal Palace was erected, designed by Joseph Paxton was also held here.

  

Here we see an adult Ring necked parakeet also known as the rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri), a medium sized parrot in the genus Psittacula of the family Psittacidae with native ranges in South Asia and Africa originally. Brought to the United kingdom and Europe as caged exhibit ornamental birds, inevitably some escaped and began breeding and in 1969 in Kent, small colonies emerged. There are now more than 8,600 breeding pairs in the UK.

  

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.

 

Nikon D850 Focal length 200mm Shutter speed 1/320s Aperture f/5.6 iso400 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held with Nikkor VR Vibration (Normal) selected . Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. AF Area mode single. Exposure mode - Manual exposure. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Manually set. Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal. Active D-lighting on Automatic. High ISO Noise Reduction: On. Picture control: Auto with Sharpening A+1.00.

  

Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150Con adapter for Lee 100 rings.Lee 100 67mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 Circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

.

 

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 30.50s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 10m 25.20s

ALTITUDE: 20.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.0MB NEF: 92.5MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 36.12MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

.

.

  

I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 32.927+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on June 11th 2019

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1154992185 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,710th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

**** This frame was chosen on August 26th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #256. This is my 142nd photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 32.950+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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.

     

Photograph taken at an altitude of Eleven metres, at 10:31am on Tuesday June 4th 2019, on a an overcast and drizzle filled morning off Birdcage Walk and Horse Guards Road in the grounds of St James's Park. Situated in the City Of Westminster, the Park spans twenty three Hectares and is the oldest of the Royal Parks of London, with a variety of visiting and nesting birds that include Ducks, Canada Geese and Pelicans.

  

Here we see a beautiful and amazingly friendly Rock Dove (Columba Livia), a relative of the trown and feral pigeon, identified by it's ash grey wings with black bands. Interbreeding with Stock and Rock Doves and feral pigeons is commonplace, thus wild rock doves in the purest form are now rare.

  

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.

 

Nikon D850 Focal length 92mm Shutter speed 1/100s Aperture f/5.6 iso360 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 6880 x 4584 FX). Hand held with Nikkor VR Vibration (Normal) selected . Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. AF Area mode single. Exposure mode - Manual exposure. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. Auto 1 white balance. Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal. Active D-lighting on Automatic. High ISO Noise Reduction: On. Picture control: Auto with Sharpening A+1.00.

  

Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E. Hoya UHC 67mm UV(C) filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

.

 

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 9.10s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 8m 7.60s

ALTITUDE: 11.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 90.40MB NEF: 64.1MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 15.20MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

**** This frame was chosen on March 1st 2016 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #249. This is my 84th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 15.0 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

  

This photograph was taken in the magic of The Golden Hour around Sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 07:39am), at an altitude of Five metres, at 07:47am on Thursday January 28th 2016 off Botany Road and Marine Drive, on the sandy shoreline of Botany Bay in Broadstairs, Kent, England.

  

I set off at 05:00am on a clear morning, the moon and the stars out to dazzle in temperatures around five degrees, on a pleanst hour and half long journey to enjoy a lovely sunrise. The seven bays in Broadstairs consist of: (From south to north) Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D800 200mm 1/8000s f/5.6 iso1250 RAW (14Bit) Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Nikon AF Fine tune set to (+6).

  

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR. Power UP 95mm HD UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL batteries. Nikon DK-17M Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Manfrotto MT057C3 057 Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections (Payload 18kgs). Manfrotto MH057M0-RC4 057 Magnesium Ball Head with RC4 Quick Release (Payload 15kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 410PL-14.Jessops Tripod bag. Optech Tripod Strap.Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW camera bag. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 23m 19.05s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 26m 19.41s

ALTITUDE: 5.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 18.59MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit

   

.

.

**** This frame was chosen on April 15th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #286. This is my 122nd photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 30.700+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

  

I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 30.655+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on October 27th 2018

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1059158846 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,461st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

     

Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty four metres, at 11:57am on Monday April 17th 2017, off Via Folke Bernadotte and Viale dell'Aranciera, Rome, Italy, of Stone Pines (Pinus Pinea), also known as the Italian Stone Pine, Umbrella Pine and Parasol Pine. Thes magnificent trees are from the Pinaceae family, and native to te Mediterranean area.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D7200 10mm 1/80s f/11.0 iso100 RAW (14Bit)Size L (6000x4000), Hand held with Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction enabled. Auto focus AF-C with 3D-tracking enabled. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.Auto Active D-lighting.

  

Nikkor AF-S 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED. Phot-R 77mm UV filter.Nikon MB-D15 Battery grip pack. Nikon EN-EL battery (2). Hoodman H-EYEN22S soft rubber eyecup. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 32GB Class 10 SDHC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. . Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 41d 54m 54.19s

LONGITUDE: E 12d 28m 53.09s

ALTITUDE: 64.00m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 69.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 18.03MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D7200 Firmware versions A 1.10 C 1.02 (9/3/17) L 2.015 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.4 24/11/2016). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

.

.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 35.532+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on January 31st 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1203127960 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,123rd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

 

**** This frame was chosen on March 26th 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #223. This is my 180th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.557+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

  

Photograph taken at an altitude of Two metres, on a foggy afternoon at 13:15pm on Sunday 22nd September 2019, off Ocean Boulevard at Coburg Peninsula looking out across the Salish Sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D850. Focal length 70mm Shutter speed 1/800s. Aperture f/16.0 iso640 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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.

  

LATITUDE: N 48d 25m 38.74s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 27m 39.69s

ALTITUDE: 2.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 92.7MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 32.60MB

     

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

 

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

.

.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 35.000+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on March 26th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1214090637 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,121st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

  

**** This frame was chosen on March 25th 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #341. This is my 179th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.500+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

  

This One point three seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of Twenty metres at 06:42am on Sunday 22nd March 2020, in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:56am),off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England.

This bridge is known locally as Five arches bridge.

  

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.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 16mm Shutter speed: One seconds long exposure. Electronic front-curtain. Aperture f/13.0 iso64 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points.AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode: Aperture priority. Matrix metering. Auto ISO sensitivity control on (Max iso 800/ Miniumum shutter speed 125). White blance on: Auto1. Colour space: RGB. Actve D-lighting: Normal. Vignette control: Normal. Nikon Distortion control: Enabled.

  

Nikkor AF-S 16-35mm f/4.0G IF ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee 100 77mm adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.9 (3 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Neewer 9750 Gimbal tripod head with Arca Swiss standard quick release plate. Jessops Tripod bag.

    

.

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 35.70s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 49.29s

ALTITUDE: 20.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.0MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 35.70MB

    

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

   

.

.

  

I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 29.645+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on October 21st 2018

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1056710034 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,424th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

 

.

.

**** This frame was chosen on March 15th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #293. This is my 120th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 29.700+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

    

This photograph was taken standing in my wellington boots and waterprood trousers, in the River Cray at an altitude of Sixteen metres at 04:49am on Monday 19th April 2018, in the golden hour around sunrise. Sunrise was at precisely 05:58am this morning, and the river is located off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England.

  

.

.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 19mm Shutter speed 1/5s Aperture f/6.3 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Manfrotto 327RC2 Magnesium Ball Head. Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.

  

Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED IF. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

.

 

.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 35.70s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 51.30s

ALTITUDE: 16.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB (NEF 91.8mb)

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 41.70MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

  

I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as companion to my D7200 DX, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 32.822+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on May 16th 2018

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/959626250 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,702nd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

.

.

**** This frame was chosen on August 20th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #256. This is my 141st photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 32.837+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty five metres at 12:48pm on Wednesday 16th May 2018 off Sandling Road, in the grounds of Brockhill Country Park in Hythe, Kent.

  

The parkland dates back to Norman times and was purchased by the Tournay family in the Fifteenth Century. William Tournay is was the first family member to have the grounds and lake sculpted, and after his death in 1903, the land was purchased by Kent County Council, and opened to the public in 1947.

     

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Nikon D850 50mm 1/40s (Electronic front curtain) f6.3 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held. Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 4m 47.90s

LONGITUDE: E 1d 3m 59.30s

ALTITUDE: 45.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 94.0MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 33.30MB

  

.

.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

**** This frame was chosen on December 17th 2018 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #63. This is my 114th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 26.500 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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.

  

Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty three metres at 16:56pm on Wednesday 7th November 2018, off Frakkastigur and Eriksgata inside Hallgrímskirkja (church of Hallgrímur) , a Seventy five metre high 1676 ㎡ Lutheran (Church of Iceland) church at Skólavörðurholt in the Helgason Parish of Reykjavík. The church is named after the Icelandic poet and clergyman Hallgrímur Pétursson.

  

The church was built between 1945-1986, a lengthy period thanks to continually diminishing funds, and was built by Guðjón Samúelsson. Inside is a pipe organ boasting 5275 pipes that was built in 1992, standing fifteen metres high and weighing twenty five tons.

  

The statue in front of the church is of Leifur Eiríksson (Leif Erikksson), a Norse explorer and son of Erik the red (Eiríkr Þorvaldsson), Leif Ericson was the first European to set foot on the continent of North America, before Christopher Columbus. Designed by American sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, the statue was a gift from the United States of America to Iceland to commemorate the 1000 year anniversary of Alþingi, the parliament of Iceland.

Reykjavik is Iceland's capital city, and the most populous at 124,847.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 35mm. Hand held with Nikkor VR vibration reduction enabled on Normal setting. Shutter speed 1/160s Aperture f/4.0 iso200 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space. Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 64d 8m 32.80s

LONGITUDE: W 21d 55m 39.80s

ALTITUDE: 43.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.9MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 34.50MB

  

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

.

.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 35.000+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on March 26th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1214018442 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,120th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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.

  

**** This frame was chosen on March 22nd 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #255. This is my 177th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.500+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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.

  

The COVID-19 Corona virus has taken hoild all over the world, no less so here in the UK where we are now restricted on where we go, bars, clubs, pubs and restaurants closed until further notice, London almost set for s lock down.

  

In kent, the supermarkets are stripped bare by panic buying, stupidity reigns and the bad side of human nature comes to the fore. In the war we pulled together as a nation because we were nicer, simpler, more friendly people back then and we had nothing, but shared our last everything. Nowadays we are selfish and greedy, looking out for number one and I can't help but feel as the virus spreads, we will see and hear some terrible examples of human nature.

  

I got out onto quiet sunday morning roads, into the countryside away from people, just myself and Mother Nature, a sunrise that was underwhelming but none the less a treat to my eyes. Fresh air and my thoughts and camera equipment as company.

  

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This Thirteen seconds long exposure was taken standing in the River Cray at an altitude of Twenty two metres at 06:38am on Sunday 22nd March 2020, in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:56am),off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 20mm Shutter speed: Four seconds long exposure. Aperture f/16.0 iso64 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points.AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode: Aperture priority. Matrix metering. Auto ISO sensitivity control on (Max iso 800/ Miniumum shutter speed 125). White blance on: Auto1. Colour space: RGB. Actve D-lighting: Normal. Vignette control: Normal. Nikon Distortion control: Enabled.

  

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.

  

Nikkor AF-S 16-35mm f/4.0G IF ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee 100 77mm adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.9 (3 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Neewer 9750 Gimbal tripod head with Arca Swiss standard quick release plate. Jessops Tripod bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 36.06s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 7m 50.46s

ALTITUDE: 22.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.7MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 50.00MB

    

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

**** This frame was chosen on Jaunary 22nd 2018 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #300. This is my 115th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 26.500 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

.

.

  

I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 26.674+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on October 14th 2018

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1053379250 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,372nd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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.

     

Photograph taken at an altitude of Thirty one metres at 09:35am on Monday 14th May 2018 off Mote Avenue and Willow Way in the grounds of Mote Park, a four hundred and fifty acre free park in Maidstone, Kent which features grassland, woodland, rivers and a thirty acre lake.

     

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.

  

Nikon D850 50mm 1/400s f/4.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Hand held. Colour space Adobe RGB. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance (8030K). Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Phot-R ultra slim 77mm UV filter. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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.

  

LATITUDE: N 51d 15m 58.30s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 32m 44.70s

ALTITUDE: 31.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.8MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 39.70MB

  

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.01 (16/01/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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.

**** This frame was chosen on April 28th 2018 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #421. This is my 100th photograph to be selected, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 17.950 Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of One hundred and ten metres at 07:44am on Thursday 21st September 2017, off Green Lane and Camer Park Lane, in the grounds of Camer Park Country Park, Meopham , Kent.

  

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Nikon D7200 17mm 1/40s f/4.2 iso100 RAW (14Bit) Size L (6000x4000)DX. Hand held. Auto focus AF-C with 3D-tracking enabled. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.Auto Active D-lighting. Adobe RGB. Auto distortion control enabled. Vignette control normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED. Phot-R 77mm UV filter.Nikon MB-D15 Battery grip pack. Nikon EN-EL battery (2). Hoodman H-EYEN22S soft rubber eyecup. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 32GB Class 10 SDHC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 22m 37.00s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 22m 35.00s

ALTITUDE: 110.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 69.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 26.92MB

  

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D7200 Firmware versions A 1.10 C 1.02 (9/3/17) L 2.015 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.4 24/11/2016). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 41.389+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Tuesday 15th February 2022

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1362866736 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 5,482nd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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Photograph taken at 10:25am at an altitude of one hundred and forty one metres on Thursday 12th September 2013 on the shoreline of Loch Voil, a small freshwater loch approximately five kilometres (3½ miles) in length.and separated from Loch doine by the River Larig. and is drained at its northern end by the River Balvaig at Balquhidder.

  

This view was taken ahead of the old stone bridge in the centre of Balquhidder, a small village in the Stirling Council area of Scotland It is overlooked by the dramatic mountain terrain of the Braeds of Balquhidder. Rob Roy is allegedly buried in the cemetary a few hundred yards from this beautiful location.

  

Nikon D800 Focal length: 82mm Shutter speed: 1/200s Aperture: f/14.0 Iso200 Mirror Up RAW (14-bit)Uncompressed file size L (7360 x 4912) FX. AF-S single point focus. Nikkor Vibration Reduction VR: On Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. High ISO: On Active D-lighting: On Auto distortion control: On

  

Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED IF VRII. 77mm Jessops UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries. Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod. Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Manfrotto 327RC2 Grip action ball head. Sandisc 32GB Ultra Class 10 30MB/s SDHC. Nikon DK-17a magnifying eyepiece. Hoodman HGEC soft eye[iece cup. Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

  

LATITUDE: N 56d 21m 19.30s

LONGITUDE: W 4d 22m 22.50s

ALTITUDE: 141.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 103.00MB NEF FILE SIZE: 72.5MB

PROCESSED FILE: 21.14MB

 

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

    

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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This Thirteen seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of One metres, at 06:38am on Thursday 16th September 2019 in the Golden hour around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, looking towards the Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in Sidney, and Work commenced on the pier in 1993 with Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

  

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.

  

Nikon D850. Focal length 24mm Shutter speed: Thirteen seconds long exposure Aperture f/16.0 iso100 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.3 (1 stop) Neutral density graduated soft resin filter. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 52.38s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.78s

ALTITUDE: 1.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.9MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 27.50MB

     

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.

  

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.20 (14/01/2021) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 R3 Series graphics card (26/03/21). 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

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.

 

**** This frame was chosen on Tuesday June 3rd 2025 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #234. This is my 239th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 50.239+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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.

  

This photograph was published online in an article in 24.HU magazine, titled:

  

'' Titokzatos betegség pusztítja az amerikai madarakat ''

  

It had also previously been aired on an episode of ITV's 'JEOPARDY' gameshow hosted by Stephen Fry on Tuesday 16th January 2024 at 4pm.

  

It was featured as the £25 question in an animal category titled 'British Wildlife', in the second round of the gameshow which had made a return to UK TV after a long absence. The show was Series 1 Episode 12.

  

It had previously been selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on July 27th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1258700073 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION, becoming my 4,472nd frame to be selected for sale (I now have 7,000).

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

 

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.

  

Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty eight metres at 09:57am on Friday 24th July 2020, of an adult Starling (Sturnus Vulgaris)standing in a stone birdbath off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 600mm Shutter speed: 1/125s Aperture f/6.3 iso80 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points.AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode: Shutter Priority mode. Matrix metering. Auto ISO sensitivity control on (Max iso 800/ Minimum shutter speed 125). White balance on: Auto1. Colour space: RGB. Active D-lighting: Normal. Vignette control: Normal. Nikon Distortion control: Enabled. Picture control: Auto (Sharpening A +1/Clarity A+1

  

Sigma 60-600mm f/4.5-6.3DG OS HSM SPORTS. Lee SW150 MKI filter holder with MK2 light shield and custom made velcro fitting for the Sigma lens. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto MT057C3-G Carbon fibre geared tripod. Neewer Gimbal tripod head with Arca Swiss quick release plate.055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

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LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.18s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.39s

ALTITUDE: 58.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.3MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 34.30MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2019 & GETTY IMAGES ®

 

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 33.481+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on September 30th 2019

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1177702596 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,715th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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**** This frame was chosen on September 30th 2019 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #27. This is my 143rd photograph to be selected, and my highest ever position on Explore, which for me is both amazing and exciting, as I never view my images as worthy compared to some of the awesome photography out there. EXPLORE is Flickr's way of showcasing the most interesting photos within a given point in time -- usually over a 24 hour period.

 

Flickr receives about 6,000 uploads every minute -- That's about 8.6 million photos a day! From this huge group of images, the Flickr Interestingness algorithm chooses only 500 images to showcase for each 24-hour period. That's only one image in every 17,000!..... so I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 34.500+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Five metres, at 19:18pm on Sunday 21st September 2019 around sunset off the 17a West Saanich Road, from the shoreline of Patricia Bay near beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

Patricia Bay is a body of salt water that extends East from the Saanich Inlet and forms part of the North Saanich shoreline in British Columbia.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 120mm Shutter speed 1/125s Aperture f/16.0 iso1100 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.3 (1 stop) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 0.9 reverse neutral grad.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.

Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 50d 41m 32.50s

LONGITUDE: W 120d 22m 22.70s

ALTITUDE: 345.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 92.3MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 34.60MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

Last time I did not have the time to write a detailed description. This is nevertheless one of my favourite parts of the whole What's In My Bag process.

 

You will notice that I have continued the process of thinning out and making lighter the content of my bag. With time, my back (which I took care of, by streghtening my back muscles), but now as well my hands have signaled with joint pain that it's time for me to face reality and drastically cut the weight I lug on a daily basis. Which I did. To paraphrase Churchill - If you listen to you body's signals at 20, you're a coward, if you don't after the age of 40, you're daft.

 

So here it goes - the content of my mag in a very cold and very rainy spring. Numbers/descriptions go on an inward spiral from left to right.

 

1. Bag: TUMI - I think the model was the Alpha 2 Slim Deluxe Leather Portfolio

 

2. Umbrella: Doppler German-made carbon steel body umbrella. A very good quality umbrella with pleanty of small things to love it for - fabric quality, silent tip, silent and smooth opening, very strong and resistent to those pesky winds we've got here.

 

3. Bose QC25: Not the best sound - the Parrot 2 I had until now were twice as good, but the Bose is so much more reliable - the Parrot had terrible sound artifacts while the noise-cancelling was active, up until that time when the microphone got completely messed up and started distorting any sound while in noise cancelling mode. I have a rather long commute on which I imperatively need noise cancelling on - the QC25 are good and reliable. I can live with them having a little less depth of sound.

 

4. Woolen Casquette Lacoste: a woolen golf hat to match my woolen sports coat - I am trying to make sure that, at least my exterior, matches my age and girth.

 

5. iPhone 6 Plus in a brown leather Apple case. Amazing device - the first phone I own that I like that much since the passing of my beloved Palm Tréo680 and 650.

 

6. A new vice of mine. Gave up cigarettes over 8 years ago. Have been smoking pipe from time to time. Now I indulge in cuban cigars. Favourite brands are 'Cohiba' and 'Romeo y Julieta' - this here is the Churchill Shorts - very good, very flavourful.

 

7. Colibri cigar cutter and cigar lighter/torch: The cutter is reliable, lies very well in the hand and can fit even a cigar of the gauge of the one in this picture. The lighter has three flames. Isn't really wind resistant , but is beautiful, has a good size tank and matches the cutter.

 

8. Mont Blanc Meisterstück Classic Platinum: Let me ask you this - if you love cars, what will you do when you buy a Bugatti Veyron? How will you justify buing anything after it? That it's better? That it's more elegant? Right. Indeed. That's what happened to me after my wife gave me this one as a present - there is no way for the pen afficionado in me to justify writing with anything else, but this jewel. Smooth writing and reliable lines, without having to press to much. Unless you write in a Moleskine, which is terrible for fountain pens, everywhere else writing with this is the ultimate writing pleasure.

 

9 and 10. Rorting rapidPRO ballpoint pen and 2.0 mm lead holder: whatever non-fountain pen and pencil I get seduced by, I always come back to this brand and mostly to this specific design. Pleasant heft, reliable and elegant, without being over the top.

 

11. Cross Star Wars Stormtrooper edition roller ball - come on, I'm still a geek and it writes with amazing smoothness - it's Cross after all, not some random Chinese knock-off.

 

12. BIC HB leads for the Rotring.

 

13. Clairefontaine notebook in an artisanal leather cover (not self-made).

 

14. Starbucks chewing gum.

 

15. Disneyland Paris tin with Advil (ibuprofen) pills

 

16. JustMobile's USB-to-Lightning short cable - very useful for a quick sync and emergency charge without the bulk. Soon to be replaced by a USB-C-to-Lightning.

 

17. STABILO swing cool Jeans Set: highlighters in a cool, but mostly practical package that I use to highlight in the book pictured above.

 

18. GEO Guide Tout Paris: GEO is a family of geography, science and travel magazines. This is a very good, detailed and well documented guide forthe city of Paris - yes, no matter how well you know a city, if you haven't stayed in for a longer period of time it since over 18 years, you should admit it to yourself and let the professionals guide you. Preparing for an extended weekend in Paris with my wife and daughter (let's see now how many of the copycats who read my posts will run to Paris now).

 

19. Disneyland Paris Phantom Manor (the equivalent of the US Haunted Mansion) key lanyard with keys and 256 GB memory stick: while waiting for the delivery of my USB3+USB-C combined drive, I will stick with this one (pun intended, sorry).

 

20. Ordning & Reda pencil case with batteries for the headphones and a SnowPeak spork: rechargable and not batteries to never stay without noise cancelling and a utensil which will be appreciated by anyone who has ever tried eating with plastic cutlery.

 

21. 2015 MacBook 12" Retina: last summer I tried to buy one of those in the US, where an employee of BestBuy on 5th was telling me that those laptops are nowhere to be found, as Apple found out, after the fact, what a poor design it was to produce a laptop with one port. When I came back to Switzerland, and they came out here a couple of months later, my wife has inherited the MacBook Air 11" that I bought in the marvelous Grand Central Station Apple store, because I bought this one and it has been a machine that I have loved and cherished every signle day. I have written a post on Quora as a response about this laptop, which describes better what this machine does for me:

www.quora.com/Should-I-get-the-2016-rMB-or-the-refurb-201...

 

22. Leather gloves: old gloves, bought over 14 years ago in Bulgaria. Been looking for something similar since - it's always either too thin or too thick. Will have to do a better research online.

 

23. RayBan Clubmaster sunglasses: Never leave home without them. Style doesn't rest, neither does the sun.

 

24. Victorinox Cadet Limited Edition 2015: This is a lightweight beautiful knife in dark (cobalt?) blue which is a perfect gentleman's knife - it has enough size to be useful for everyday tasks, without looking menacing, and that has a length that allows it to be carried even in Chicago (I think).

 

25. Victorinox Alox Mini SwissChamp: Alox refers to the aliminium scales - the same material that allows the knife abov e it to be carried in your pocket (or in this case - in your bag) next to your keys and not be scratched. the MiniChamp is a very useful helper. No, I do not feel not even the tiniest little bit embarrassed that I have two Swiss knifes in one bag.

 

26. A comb: When I still had proper hair on my head, I never had one of those on me. Now it's either that or an unruly beard. Which let's admit it, is quite weird. (OK, I'm done with the puns)

 

27. Sony ICD-SX1000 voice recorder: whenever I'm not around people and I don't have to write down, I spare my fingers the pain and just dictate my notes. Most of the time, just debriefing myself is enough for me to remember everything.

 

28. Apple USB-to-USB-C adapter: as I mentioned in point 19 above, I have native USB-C+USB 3 sticks coming soon - that's when I'll lose this, and the USB-to-Lightning from point 16 will be replaced by USB-to-USB-C.

 

29. Mass Transit subscription card.

 

30. SecrID - RFID blocking thin profile card wallet.

 

31. Damn Handsome Beard Kit: Great present from my wife. Contains a small metal moustache comb, small beard and moustache scissors, beard oil and beard wax. Just dandy!

Target:M94, Croc's Eye Galaxy, spiral galaxy, Canes Venatici, 16 million light years away.

 

Location:23-04-2022, Aberdaron, North Wales, Bortle 2, No Moon, wind gusts.

 

Acquisition:30x 120s Red, 26x 120s Green, 24x 120s Blue, 51x 120s Lum. Calibrated with Darks, Dark Flats, Flats. Total integration 4.4 hours.

 

Equipment:Skywatcher 200P, HEQ5pro, Altair H183Mpro. ZWO EFWmini and LRGB. Baader MPCC MkIII Coma Corrector.

 

Guiding:Skywatcher 9x50 Finder with 2x barlow and Altai GPCAMAR0130M.

 

Software:NINA, PHD2, EQMOD.

 

Processing:Affinity Photo, Siril, StarXTerminator, Topaz DeNoise AI.

 

Memories:Wind gusts affecting guiding and a disconected power cable to my 7 port USB3 hub on the OTA caused banding on the subframes meaning only moderate stretching of the data was possible.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 50.482+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Tuesday 8th July 2025

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/2223682081 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 7,231st frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Saturday 16th August 2025 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #360. This is my 240th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 50.491+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph at an altitude of Twenty five metres at 12:59pm on a wet summer afternoon on Saturday 5th July 2025,off Horse Guards Avenue and Victoria Embankment A3211 in the grounds of the Victoria Embankment Gardens Whitehall in Central London.

 

Here we see a magnificent Peruvian Lily (Alstroemeria) in bloom, also known as Lily of the Incas and native to South America.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length: 110mm Shutter speed: 1/40s Aperture: f/10.0 iso64 Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction enabled 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 A1.50 (4410k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: (SD) Standard

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-130mm F4 VR ED. Nikon GP-1 GPS moduleHoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 20.60s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 7m 24.20s

ALTITUDE: 25.00m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 90.3MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 36.70MB

      

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 50.572+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Thursday 3rd April 2025

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/2206001668 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 7,254th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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**** This frame was chosen on Thursday 11th September 2025 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #465. This is my 241st photograph to be selected.

  

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 50.572+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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A SERIES ON THE EASTERN GRAY/EASTERN GREY SQUIRREL (SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS)

By Paul Williams

  

The Grey (or Gray) squirrel, you either love 'em or you hate 'em. Cute and fluffy little funsters or destructive critters who ruin trees, kill bird chicks and trees and damage our homes... oh and it's their fault we lost our native Red squirrels as well!

  

OK

  

I get it and I see both sides of the story of course. For my part, I am a nature, wildlife and landscape photographer who prefers the company of animals and natural beauty to fellow humans who are systematically plundering Mother Earth's resources and killing off her beautiful creatures at an alarming rate! I believe there is a natural order of things, creatures kill other creatures to survive, they adapt to situations and when mankind encroaches on their territory to make a fast buck, those animals sometimes adapt to survive and the order changes. That is the balance of nature which is ever changing and affected by us..... the dumbest of the great apes. Some species are driven out by others, some may be destined to become extinct, the fittest will survive, and sometime a species will need intervention and help from mankind in order to survive... usually as a direct consequence of mankind's own actions in destroying the animal kingdom's natural habitat of course.

  

I adore these little fellas and at almost sixty years old, I never grew up knowing red squirrels at all. I've seen reds in Scotland and black squirrels in Stanley Park on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada, but in my beloved home country of England I have always known and loved the cute little Greys. They visit my garden and give me hours, days, weeks of happiness and wonderful photographic opportunities, and I see them in Parks and forests all around me, so it's time to offer up an insight into the Grey squirrel, much loved, much hated... a sort of Marmite rodent if you will.

  

WHAT EXACTLY IS A SQUIRREL?

  

The word 'Squirrel', was first recorded in 1327 and hails from the Anglo-Norman word 'Esquirel', from old French 'Escurel', which was a reflex for the Latin word 'Sciurus'.The Eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) is also known as the Eastern Grey squirrel or simply grey squirrel depending on the region of the world it is found. It is a tree squirrel, of the squirrel family Sciuridae including over one hundred arboreal species native to all continents of the world other than Antarctica and Oceania. Tree squirrels live mostly in trees, apart from the flying squirrel. The best known genus is Sciurus, containing most of the bushy tailed squirrels which are found in Europe, North America, temperate Asia as well as central and south America.

  

The scientific classification for the Eastern Grey is:

KINGDOM: ANIMALIA PHYLUM: CHORDATA CLASS: MAMMALIA ORDER: RODENTIA FAMILY: SCIURIDAE GENUS: SCIURUS SUBGENUS: SCIURUS SPECIES: SCIURUS CAROLINENSIS

  

A mammal and rodent, predominantly herbivorous they are none the less an omnivore with a life span of between two and ten years. They can grow to 70cm in length and weigh up to 8kg. There are more than two hundred and sixty species of worldwide squirrel, the smallest being the African pygmy squirrel at just 10cm in length, whereas the Indian giant squirrel is three feet long! The oldest fossil of a squirrel, Hesperopetes, dates back to the late Eocene epoch period Chadronian period of 40-35 million years ago. The tree squirrels rotate their ankles by 180 degrees, so that the hind paws pointy backwards gripping tree bark which enables them to descend a tree headfirst.

  

Originally native to Eastern and Midwestern United States of America, they were first introduced into the United Kingdom in 1876 in Henbury Park, Macclesfield in Cheshire when Victorian banker Thomas V. Brocklehurst released a pair of Greys that he brought back from a business trip to America after their attraction as pets had waned. Victorians had a penchant for collecting exotic animals and birds of the world, but trends came and went and subsequently animals were simply discarded into the wilderness. There are early records of greys released near Denbighshire in north Wales from private collections. Later introduced to several regions in the UK, they quickly settled and spread, colonizing an area of three hundred miles in a quarter of a century between Argyll and Stirlingshire in Scotland.

  

Introductions of the Greys between 1902 and 1929 (the year of the last recorded introduction), included: Regent’s Park in London, Berkshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire, Suffolk and Hampshire. Grey Squirrels spread into Gloucestershire and eastern Wiltshire with animals coming directly from the United States or from Woburn. One hundred greys were released in Richmond Park in Surrey in 1902, Ninety one into Regent’s Park between 1905 and 1907 and a further ten New Jersey imported greys were introduced into Woburn Park in Bedfordshire.

  

FACTS, MYTHS AND THAT POXY PARAPOX!

  

The massive decline in native red squirrels blamed upon the spread of the invasive greys has always been perhaps a little harsh as reds were already in a steep decline due to loss of habitat and disease and thus the greys simply took over the areas where the reds were dwindling. It's also a fact that reds were also seen as a plague, branded as pests who killed birds and damaged trees and the culling of reds almost brought them to the brink of extinction. Licenses to kill reds could still be obtained up until the seventies!

  

Reds suffered at the hands of mankind thanks to a combination of agricultural deforestation also linked with war and fuel needs which caused extinction in Southern Scotland and Ireland by the early eighteenth century, way before greys had been introduced. Harsh winters killed off the less hardy red population in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

  

Greys are more adept at finding food and adapting to locations and environments, but also carry the squirrel poxvirus (SQPV) which although not particularly harmful to them, is a serious infection for the reds.

  

Parapox in red squirrels causes swollen lesions around the mouth, eyes, ears and nose also the front paws and sometimes genitals and skin ulcers and kills a red within fifteen days. There is no definitive correlation between the spread of the virus and the spread of the Greys, it actually arrived in several areas before the greys began to colonize there. An epidemic virus was observed in Red squirrels from at least 1900 with isolation attempts failing, and the first case of Parapox in the UK was in 1980 in the county of Norfolk. Greys cannot transmit the virus to reds via saliva or faeces, but reds can between each other from bodily secretions and at animal feeders in gardens. The transmission from greys to reds is though to come from parasites. Eight to ten per cent of reds survive the virus, and there is some evidence that reds are slowly building an evolved resistance.

  

Greys are seen as pests to forest land, stripping bark from trees during May and June, and are also capable of destroying household bins, water pipes, causing roof damage not to mention taking eggs and killing young chicks of ground nesting and songbird populations. They also take from bird feeders and there is a whole industry for creating squirrel proof feeders these days.

  

THE CULLING OF GREY SQUIRRELS

  

Grey squirrels have limited legal protection and can be legally controlled all year round by a variety of methods including shooting and trapping. Methods of trapping and killing include Drey poking and shooting, Tunnel trapping using spring traps set in accordance with BASC’s trapping pest mammals code of practice. They can also be shot using a shotgun or powerful air rifle or up until September 30th 2014 poisoned by Warfarin (Now outlawed).

  

Whilst professional trapping and extermination is hopefully done as humanely as possible, there have been cases, many of them where cost savings have been gained by battering the squirrels to death! Grey squirrels are trapped in ghastly metal contraptions for hours and hours, wearing themselves out frantically trying to escape by gnawing at the metals bars. They bite the floor and scratch at them with their claws and do not get a moments peace or rest through absolute fear. Once the traps are retrieved, each squirrel, terrified will be thrown into a sack and smacked on the head countless times with a blunt instrument. When a mother is slaughtered, her babies who are totally dependent on her, will die a slow death of thirst and starvation.

  

There is an argument for the control of Greys on many grounds but also a counter argument that Culling does not work, and has not on countless times where, once a population of greys have been culled, the nearest group will move back in and claim the land. The university of Bristol concluded that there was little evidence that culling greys to save red squirrels was effective, and that perhaps finding a way of boosting red squirrel immunity to the poxvirus or planting areas of yew trees where reds are known to thrive and spending money on research into positive moves might be a better option.

  

In Ireland, the re-introduction of the Pine marten, a species made extinct originally by the very same land owners who also wish to do the same to the grey squirrel, has seen the rapid demise of the grey and the reintroction of the native reds. Red squirrels are smaller and more nimble than their grey counterparts, and as such can get to the very ends of tree branches where neither the pine martins, nor more importantly the heavier greys can, thus surviving and thriving. As a result in Ireland, the grey squirrel population has crashed in approximately 9,000 km2 of its former range and the reds has become common once more after a thirty year absence... oh and Pine Martens are protected again!

  

In Scotland, Pine Martens exist in areas where Red squirrels thrive, and greys do not. So perhaps there is a lesson here, as in England where there are no pine martens, the greys are prolific breeders. So there is an argument against the barbarity of shooting and poisoning greys, and if, as so many believe, the greys MUST be controlled, how about a more humane and natural method that nature intended.. with re-introduction of predators. Just a thought!

 

So a few facts and figures on the greys and to wrap up, from a purely personal perspective I love these little guys, as I do almost every creature in nature other than those eight legged beasties that shall not be named and for which I have a deep and powerful phobia that borders on paranoia!

  

I could no more harm an animal deliberately than eat a McDonald's McRib (Once saw how they are made and let me just say... eeeuuuuuwwwww!!). They are small, cute, cuddly, furry, they photograph beautifully, have great personality and make me smile. They trust me enough to take food from my hand in parks, and I can't bare the though of ugly, hairy land owners sticking a shotgun in their face and blowing them away! I appreciate they can be a pest, a problem, a menace, that their PR managers might have a bit of a problem winning you over when they flay small chicks alive on your lawn or decimate the songbird population by stealing their eggs.... and perhaps there is a need to keep the population under control and try and re-establish the red population.....

  

Yep I get that....

  

I just hope we can solve the problem more humanely to create a peaceful coexistence of the reds and greys in different areas. A man can dream can't he.

  

Paul Williams June 18th 2021

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams).

  

Photograph taken at an altitude of Seventy four metres at 08:24am on a showery morning on Wednesday 12th May 2021, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see, Sciurus Carolinensis (Eastern Gray Squirrel or Grey Squirrel), a tree squirrel native to North America and first introduced to the UK in the 1870's. Though it was largely responsible for the decimation of our own native red squirrel population, those are now on the increase and found in certain parts of the UK including Scotland. The Greys are still an ecologically essential natural forester regenerator.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 500mm Shutter speed: 1/640s Aperture f/8.0 iso500 Tripod mounted with Tamron VC Vibration Control set to position 3. Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual mode Metering mode: Spot metering White balance on: Auto1 (4570k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto MT057C3-G Carbon fiber Geared tripod 3 sections. Neewer Carbon Fiber Gimble tripod head 10088736 with Arca Swiss standard quick release plate. Neewer 9996 Arca Swiss release plate P860 x2.Jessops Tripod bag. Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.28s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.44s

ALTITUDE: 74.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 91.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 48.30MB

    

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PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 50.851+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Monday 27th October 2025

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/2243348223 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 7,328th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Saturday 29th November 2025 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #482. This is my 243rd photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 50.851+ Million people who have visited, favourited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty one metres at 11:28am on Wednesday April 19th 2017,off Piazza di Spagna, on the Spanish Steps looking up towards Fraternita'Monistica Della Sorelle Di Gerusalemme in Rome, Italy.

  

Obelisco Sallustiano sits in front of the church off Piazza della Trinita dei Monti. The Obelisk is a n Aurelian copy of the larger Flaminio Obelisk of Rameses II located in the Piazza del Popolo.

    

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Nikon D7200 12mm 1/250s f/16.0 iso250 RAW (14Bit) Size L (6000x4000), Hand held with Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction enabled. Auto focus AF-C with 3D-tracking enabled. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance.Auto Active D-lighting.

  

Nikkor AF-S 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED. Phot-R 77mm UV filter.Nikon MB-D15 Battery grip pack. Nikon EN-EL battery (2). Hoodman H-EYEN22S soft rubber eyecup. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 32GB Class 10 SDHC. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 41d 54m 21.96s

LONGITUDE: E 12d 28m 59.09s

ALTITUDE: 51.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 69.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 19.03MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D7200 Firmware versions A 1.10 C 1.02 (9/3/17) L 2.015 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.4 24/11/2016). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 49.612+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Friday 26th January 2024

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1959676369 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 7,008th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Tuesday January 21st 2025 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #341. This is my 238th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 49.633+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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This photograph was taken an altitude of Seven hundred and ninety two metres, at 11:28am on Saturday May 14th 2016 on the shoreline of Little Teslin Lake heading towards Johnsons Crossing at mile 836 of the Alaska Highway 1 in Yukon territory, Canada.

  

This is a large adult American Black Bear (Ursus Americanus), a medium sized bear native to North America, and found in abundance in the Yukon territory and Alaska. Black bears have a small tail, up to nine inches long foot length and males can weigh up to 250kgs. On my trip I encountered several bears and, although it is strongly recommended that you do not leave your vehicle to photograph these beautiful wild animals, needless to say, with care and caution I did just that to capture my photographs.

  

Nikon D800 Focal length 450mm Shutter speed 1/60s Aperture f/9.0 iso100 RAW (14Bit) Hand held with Nikon VR Vibration reduction enabled. Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Nikon AF Fine tune on (+10).

  

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6G ED VR. Power up 95mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries. Nikon DK-17M 1.2x Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC card. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW Photo/ 15.4" Notebook Backpack camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS unit.

   

LATITUDE: N 60d 29m 15.55s

LONGITUDE: W 133d 21m 32.65s

ALTITUDE: 792.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 37.40MB

  

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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.

 

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 48.524+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Tuesday 23rd January 2024

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1942079239 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 6,699th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Wednesday 20th July 2024 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #498. This is my 235th photograph to be selected.

  

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 48.544+ Million people who have visited, favourited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty seven metres at 12:38pm on an overcast afternoon on Wednesday 17th January 2024, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see an adult Male Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), a bird of prey belonging to the kestrel group of the falcon family Falconidae. It is also known as the European kestrel, Eurasian kestrel, Common Kestrel or Old World kestrel. In the United Kingdom, where no other kestrel species commonly occurs, it is generally just called kestrel.

  

Female kestrels are an unremarkable shade of mid-brown, with their upper parts a richer shade than their breast and underparts. Their wingtips are darker brown than the rest of their bodies, and their tails are light brown, barred with darker, almost black banding. Female kestrels’ bodies are speckled all over with mottled darker markings.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 600mm Shutter speed: 1/500s (Mechanical shutter) Aperture f/6.3 ISO Sensitivity: AutoISO110 Hand held with Tamron Vibration Control set to position 1 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504) (14 bit uncompressed) Focus Mode: AF-C Nikon Back button focusing enabled AF-S Priority selection: Focus AF-Area Mode: 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Natural Light Auto, 0, 0 Colour space: RGB Active D-Lighting: Normal Picture control: (SD) Standard (Sharpening +3 Clarity +1.00)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup. Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.21s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.54s

ALTITUDE: 57.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.9MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 20.50MB

     

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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.

 

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 48.686+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Friday 26th January 2024

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1959639851 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 6,745th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Wednesday 14th August 2024 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #344. This is my 236th photograph to be selected.

  

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 48.699+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty eight metres at 07:18am on a showery morning on Monday 10th May 2021, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see, Sciurus Carolinensis (Eastern Gray Squirrel or Grey Squirrel), a tree squirrel native to North America and first introduced to the UK in the 1870's. Though it was largely responsible for the decimation of our own native red squirrel population, those are now on the increase and found in certain parts of the UK including Scotland. The Greys are still an ecologically essential natural forester regenerator.

  

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.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 600mm Shutter speed: 1/640s Aperture f/6.3 iso800 Tripod mounted with Tamron VC Vibration Control set to position 3. Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual mode Metering mode: Spot metering White balance on: Auto1 (4570k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto MT057C3-G Carbon fiber Geared tripod 3 sections. Neewer Carbon Fiber Gimble tripod head 10088736 with Arca Swiss standard quick release plate. Neewer 9996 Arca Swiss release plate P860 x2.Jessops Tripod bag. Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.03s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.50s

ALTITUDE: 48.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 92.8MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 33.60MB

      

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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.

 

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 49.388+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on Thursday 1st February 2024

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1972245530 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 6,950th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Saturday 14th December 2024 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #382. This is my 237th photograph to be selected.

  

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 49.403+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Four metres at 12:59am on Saturday 27th January 2024, off the Mall and Horse Guards Road within the grounds of St James's Park in Central London, one of the Royal parks of London situated in South West London.

  

Here we see, Sciurus Carolinensis (Eastern Gray Squirrel or Grey Squirrel), a tree squirrel native to North America and first introduced to the UK in the 1870's. Though it was largely resonsible for the decimation of our own native red squirrel population, those are now on the increase and found in certain parts of the UK including Scotland. The Greys are still an ecologically essential natural forester regenerator.

 

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Nikon D850 Focal length 420mm Shutter speed: 1/800s (Mechanical shutter) Aperture f/6.0 ISO: Auto ISO2200 Hand held with Tamron VR Vibration reduction enabled on setting 1. Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). (14 bit uncompressed file) Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled AF-Area mode: 3D-Tracking Exposure mode: Manual mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Natural light Auto, 0, 0 Colour space: RGB. Picture control: Standard (SD) (Sharpening +3.00/Clarity +1.00) Active D-Lighting: Normal High ISO NR: On (Normal)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 16.30s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 7m 51.70s

ALTITUDE: 4.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.8MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 55.10MB

      

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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**** This frame was chosen on Sunday 28th January 2024 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #457. This is my 229th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 47.373+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Seven metres at 11:47am on Saturday 27th January 2024, off the Mall and Horse Guards Road within the grounds of St James's Park in Central London, one of the Royal parks of London situated in South West London.

  

Here we see, Sciurus Carolinensis (Eastern Gray Squirrel or Grey Squirrel), a tree squirrel native to North America and first introduced to the UK in the 1870's. Though it was largely responsible for the decimation of our own native red squirrel population, those are now on the increase and found in certain parts of the UK including Scotland. The Greys are still an ecologically essential natural forester regenerator.

 

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.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 600mm Shutter speed: 1/500s (Mechanical shutter) Aperture f/6.3 ISO: Auto ISO500 Hand held with Tamron VR Vibration reduction enabled on setting 1. Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). (14 bit uncompressed file) Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled AF-Area mode: 3D-Tracking Exposure mode: Manual mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Natural light Auto, 0, 0 Colour space: RGB. Picture control: Standard (SD) (Sharpening +3.00/Clarity +1.00) Active D-Lighting: Normal High ISO NR: On (Normal)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 30m 6.90s

LONGITUDE: W 0d 8m 17.30s

ALTITUDE: 7.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 91.6MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.70MB

      

PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 36.284+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on February 7th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1204161019 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,319th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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This photograph of a Golden Eagle (Aquila Chrysaetos), was taken at 10:47pm on Tuesday 24th May 2016 near Duncan in British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Golden Eagle is the most widely distributed species of Eagle, and large specimens have been recorded with a wingspan in excess of Eight feet and males weighing fourteen pounds. They have been know to maintain home territories of up to 200 kilometres and can dive at speeds of two hundred Miles per hour.

  

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Nikon D800 Focal length 500mm Shutter speed 1/40s Aperture f/5.6 iso500 RAW (14Bit) Hand held. Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Nikkor VR Vibration Reduction on.

  

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6G ED VR. Jessops 95mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries. Nikon DK-17M 1.2x Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC card. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW Photo/ 15.4" Notebook Backpack camera bag.

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB (NEF 72.6MB)

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 26.70MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 37.858+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on August 20th 2020

  

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This photograph became my 4,708th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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This Thirty seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of Eight metres, seated on a fold up camping chair at 06:35am on Saturday 21st September 2019 around sunrise between Beacon Avenue and Bevan Avenue, close to Divers point in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Fish market on Beacon Avenue has long been a popular location in Sidney and is situated on the pier close to Beacon Park and the new bandstand.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 50mm Shutter speed: Thirty seconds long exposure (Electronic front-curtain) Aperture f/16.0 iso160 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.3 (1 stop) ND Grad soft resin.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 53.70s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.44s

ALTITUDE: 0.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.1MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 32.00MB

    

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PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

 

AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT CORVUS CORONE

  

LEGEND AND MYTHOLOGY

  

Crows appear in the Bible where Noah uses one to search for dry land and to check on the recession of the flood. Crows supposedly saved the prophet, Elijah, from famine and are an Inuit deity. Legend has it that England and its monarchy will end when there are no more crows in the Tower of London. And some believe that the crows went to the Tower attracted by the regular corpses following executions with written accounts of their presence at the executions of Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

  

In Welsh mythology, unfortunately Crows are seen as symbolic of evilness and black magic thanks to many references to witches transforming into crows or ravens and escaping. Indian legend tells of Kakabhusandi, a crow who sits on the branches of a wish-fulfilling tree called Kalpataru and a crow in Ramayana where Lord Rama blessed the crow with the power to foresee future events and communicate with the souls.

  

In Native American first nation legend the crow is sometimes considered to be something of a trickster, though they are also viewed positively by some tribes as messengers between this world and the next where they carry messages from the living to those deceased, and even carry healing medicines between both worlds. There is a belief that crows can foresee the future. The Klamath tribe in Oregon believe that when we die, we fly up to heaven as a crow. The Crow can also signify wisdom to some tribes who believe crows had the power to talk and were therefore considered to be one of the wisest of birds. Tribes with Crow Clans include the Chippewa (whose Crow Clan and its totem are called Aandeg), the Hopi (whose Crow Clan is called Angwusngyam or Ungwish-wungwa), the Menominee, the Caddo, the Tlingit, and the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico.

  

The crow features in the Nanissáanah (Ghost dance), popularized by Jerome Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota sub-chief and warrior born at Horse Stealing Creek in Montana Territory in 1833, the crow symbolizing wisdom and the past, when the crow had became a guide and acted as a pathfinder during hunting. The Ghost dance movement was originally created in 1870 by Wodziwob, or Gray Hair, a prophet and medicine man of the Paiute tribe in an area that became known as Nevada. Ghost dancers wore crow and eagle feathers in their clothes and hair, and the fact that the Crow could talk placed it as one of the sages of the animal kingdom. The five day dances seeking trance,prophecy and exhortations would eventually play a major part in the pathway towards the white man's broken treaties, the infamous battle at Wounded knee and the surrender of Matȟó Wanáȟtaka (Kicking Bear), after officials began to fear the ghost dancers and rituals which seemed to occur prior to battle.

  

Historically the Vikings are the group who made so many references to the crow, and Ragnarr Loðbrók and his sons used this species in his banner as well as appearances in many flags and coats of arms. Also, it had some kind of association with Odin, one of their main deities. Norse legend tells us that Odin is accompanied by two crows. Hugin, who symbolizes thought, and Munin, who represents a memory. These two crows were sent out each dawn to fly the entire world, returning at breakfast where they informed the Lord of the Nordic gods of everything that went on in their kingdoms. Odin was also referred to as Rafnagud (raven-god). The raven appears in almost every skaldic poem describing warfare.Coins dating back to 940's minted by Olaf Cuaran depict the Viking war standard, the Raven and Viking war banners (Gonfalon) depicted the bird also.

  

In Scandinavian legends, crows are a representative of the Goddess of Death, known as Valkyrie (from old Norse 'Valkyrja'), one of the group of maidens who served the Norse deity Odin, visiting battlefields and sending him the souls of the slain worthy of a place in Valhalla. Odin ( also called Wodan, Woden, or Wotan), preferred that heroes be killed in battle and that the most valiant of souls be taken to Valhöll, the hall of slain warriors. It is the crow that provides the Valkyries with important information on who should go. In Hindu ceremonies that are associated to ancestors, the crow has an important place in Vedic rituals. They are seen as messengers of death in Indian culture too.

  

In Germanic legend, Crows are seen as psychonomes, meaning the act of guiding spirits to their final destination, and that the feathers of a crow could cure a victim who had been cursed. And yet, a lone black crow could symbolize impending death, whilst a group symbolizes a lucky omen! Vikings also saw good omens in the crow and would leave offerings of meat as a token.

  

The crow also has sacred and prophetic meaning within the Celtic civilization, where it stood for flesh ripped off due to combat and Morrighan, the warrior goddess, often appears in Celtic mythology as a raven or crow, or else is found to be in the company of the birds. Crow is sacred to Lugdnum, the Celtic god of creation who gave his name to the city of Lug

  

In Greek mythology according to Appolodorus, Apollo is supposedly responsible for the black feathers of the crow, turning them forever black from their pristine white original plumage as a punishment after they brought news that Κορωνις (Coronis) a princess of the Thessalian kingdom of Phlegyantis, Apollo's pregnant lover had left him to marry a mortal, Ischys. In one legend, Apollo burned the crows feathers and then burned Coronis to death, in another Coronis herself was turned into a black crow, and another that she was slain by the arrows of Αρτεμις (Artemis - twin to Apollo). Koronis was later set amongst the stars as the constellation Corvus ("the Crow"). Her name means "Curved One" from the Greek word korônis or "Crow" from the word korônê.A similar Muslim legend allegedly tells of Muhammad, founder of Islam and the last prophet sent by God to Earth, who's secret location was given away by a white crow to his seekers, as he hid in caves. The crow shouted 'Ghar Ghar' (Cave, cave) and thus as punishment, Muhammad turned the crow black and cursed it for eternity to utter only one phrase, 'Ghar, ghar). Native Indian legend where the once rainbow coloured crows became forever black after shedding their colourful plumage over the other animals of the world.

  

In China the Crow is represented in art as a three legged bird on a solar disk, being a creature that helps the sun in its journey. In Japan there are myths of Crow Tengu who were priests who became vain, and turned into this spirit to serve as messengers until they learn the lesson of humility as well as a great Crow who takes part in Shinto creation stories.

  

In animal spirit guides there are general perceptions of what sightings of numbers of crows actually mean:

  

1 Crow Meaning: To carry a message from your near one who died recently.

 

2 Crows Meaning: Two crows sitting near your home signifies some good news is on your way.

 

3 Crows Meaning: An upcoming wedding in your family.

 

4 Crows Meaning: Symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

 

5 Crows Meaning: Diseases or pain.

 

6 Crows Meaning: A theft in your house!

 

7 Crows Meaning: Denotes travel or moving from your house.

 

8 Crows Meaning: Sorrowful events

  

Crows are generally seen as the symbolism when alive for doom bringing, misfortune and bad omens, and yet a dead crow symbolises potentially bringing good news and positive change to those who see it. This wonderful bird certainly gets a mixed bag of contradictory mythology and legend over the centuries and in modern days is often seen as a bit of a nuisance, attacking and killing the babies of other birds such as Starlings, Pigeons and House Sparrows as well as plucking the eyes out of lambs in the field, being loud and noisy and violently attacking poor victims in a 'crow court'....

  

There is even a classic horror film called 'THE CROW' released in 1994 by Miramax Films, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Brandon Lee in his final film appearance as Eric Draven, who is revived by a Crow tapping on his gravestone a year after he and his fiancée are murdered in Detroit by a street gang. The crow becomes his guide as he sets out to avenge the murders. The only son of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Brandon lee suffered fatal injuries on the set of the film when the crew failed to remove the primer from a cartridge that hit Lee in the abdomen with the same force as a normal bullet. Lee died that day, March 31st 1993 aged 28.

  

The symbolism of the Crow resurrecting the dead star and accompanying him on his quest for revenge was powerful, and in some part based on the history of the carrion crow itself and the original film grossed more than $94 Million dollars with three subsequent sequels following.

  

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

  

So let's move away from legend, mythology and stories passed down from our parents and grandparents and look at these amazing birds in isolation.

  

Carrion crow are passerines in the family Corvidae a group of Oscine passerine birds including Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies, Treepies, Choughs and Nutcrackers. Technically they are classed as Corvids, and the largest of passerine birds. Carrion crows are medium to large in size with rictal bristles and a single moult per year (most passerines moult twice). Carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (Carl Von Linne after his ennoblement) in his 1758 and 1759 editions of 'SYSTEMA NATURAE', and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone, derived from the Latin of Corvus, meaning Raven and the Greek κορώνη (korōnē), meaning crow.

  

Carrion crow are of the Animalia kingdom Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Corvidae Genus: Corvus and Species: Corvus corone

  

Corvus corone can reach 45-47cm in length with a 93-104cm wingspan and weigh between 370-650g. They are protected under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the United Kingdom with a Green UK conservation status which means they are of least concern with more than 1,000,000 territories. Breeding occurs in April with fledging of the chicks taking around twenty nine days following an incubation period of around twenty days with 3 to 4 eggs being the average norm.

  

They are abundant in the UK apart from Northwest Scotland and Ireland where the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix) was considered the same species until 2002. They have a lifespan of around four years, whilst Crow species can live to the age of Twenty years old, and the oldest known American crow in the wild was almost Thirty years old. The oldest documented captive crow died at age Fifty nine. They are smaller and have a shorter lifespan than the Raven, which again is used as a symbol in history to live life to the full and not waste a moment!

  

They are often mistaken for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), a similar bird, though in the UK, the Rook is actually technically smaller than the Carrion crow averaging 44-46cm in length, 81-99cm wingspan and weighing up to 340g. Rooks have white beaks compared to the black beaks of Carrion crow, a more steeply raked ratio from head to beak, and longer straighter beaks as well as a different plumage pattern. There are documented cases in the UK of singular and grouped Rooks attacking and killing Carrion crows in their territory. Rooks nest in colonies unlike Carrion crows. Carrion crows have only a few natural enemies including powerful raptors such as the northern goshawk, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle-owl and the golden eagle which will all readily hunt them.

  

Regarded as one of the most intelligent birds, indeed creatures on the planet, studies suggest that Corvids cognitive abilities can rival that of primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas and even provide clues to understanding human intelligence. Crows have relatively large brains for their body size, compared to other animals. Their encephalization quotient (EQ) a ratio of brain to body size, adjusted for size because there isn’t a linear relationship is 4.1. That is remarkably close to chimps at 4.2 whilst humans are 8.1. Corvids also have a very high neuronal density, the number of neurons per gram of brain, factoring in the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, interneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity shows that Corvids score high on this measure as well, with humans scoring the highest.

  

A corvid's pallium is packed with more neurons than a great ape's. Corvids have demonstrated the ability to use a combination of mental tools such as imagination, and anticipation of future events. They can craft tools from twigs and branches to hook grubs from deep recesses, they can solve puzzles and intricate methods of gaining access to food set by humans., and have even bent pieces of wire into hooks to obtain food. They have been proven to have a higher cognitive ability level than seven year old humans. Communications wise, their repertoire of wraw-wraw's is not fully understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seems to form the basis of a possible language. They also remember the faces of humans who have hindered or hurt them and pass that information on to their offspring.

  

Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher, tells of a thirsty crow which drops stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level and enable it to take a drink. Scientists have conducted tests to see whether crows really are this intelligent. They placed floating treats in a deep tube and observed the crows indeed dropping dense objects carefully selected into the water until the treat floated within reach. They had the intelligence to pick up, weigh and discount objects that would float in the water, they also did not select ones that were too large for the container.

  

Pet crows develop a unique call for their owners, in effect actually naming them. They also know to sunbathe for a dose of vitamin D, regularly settling on wooden garden fences, opening their mouths and wings and raising their heads to the sun. In groups they warn of danger and communicate vocally. They store a cache of food for later if in abundance and are clever enough to move it if they feel it has been discovered. They leave markers for their cache. They have even learned to place walnuts and similar hard food items under car tyres at traffic lights as a means of cracking them!

  

Crows regularly gather around a dead fellow corvid, almost like a funeral, and it is thought they somehow learn from each death. They can even remember human faces for decades.Crows group together to attack larger predators and even steal their food, and they have different dialects in different areas, with the ability to mimic the dialect of the alpha males when they enter their territory!

  

They have a twenty year life span, the oldest on record reaching the age of Fifty nine. Crows can leave gifts for those who feed them such as buttons or bright shiny objects as a thank you, and they even kiss and make up after an argument, having mated for life.

  

In mythology they are associated with good and bad luck, being the bringers of omens and even witchcraft and are generally reviled for their attacks on baby birds and small mammals. They have an attack method of to stunning smaller birds before consuming them, tearing violently at smaller, less aggressive birds, which is simply down to the fact that they are so highly intelligent, and also the top of the food chain. Their diet includes over a thousand different items: Dead animals (as their name suggests), invertebrates, grain, as well as stealing eggs and chicks from other birds' nests, worms, insects, fruit, seeds, kitchen scraps.

  

They are highly adaptable when food sources grow scarce. I absolutely love them, they are magnificent, bold, beautiful and incredibly interesting to watch and though at times it is hard to witness attacks made by them, I cannot help but adore them for so many other and more important reasons.

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAIR IN MY GARDEN

  

Crows have been in the area for a while, but rarely had strayed into my garden, leaving the Magpies to own the territory. Things changed towards the end of May when a beautiful female Carrion crow appeared and began to take some of the food that I put down for the other birds. Within a few days she began to appear regularly, on occasions stocking up on food, whilst other times placing pieces in the birdbath to soften them. She would stand on the birdbath and eat and drink and come back over the course of the day to eat the softened food.

  

Shortly afterwards she brought along her mate, a tall and handsome fella, much larger than her who was also very vocal if he felt she was getting a little too close to me. By now I had moved from a seated position from the patio as an observer, to laying on a mat just five feet from the birdbath with my Nikon so that I could photograph the pair as they landed, scavenged and fed. She was now confident enough to let me be very close, and she even tolerated and recognized the clicking of the camera. At first I used silent mode to reduce the noise but this only allowed two shooting frame rates of single frame or continuous low frame which meant I was missing shots. I reverted back to normal continuous high frames and she soon got used to the whirring of the mechanisms as the mirror slapped back and forth.

  

The big fella would bark orders at her from the safety of the fence or the rear of the garden, whilst she rarely made a sound. That was until one day when in the sweltering heat she kept opening her beak and sunning on the grass, panting slightly in the heat. I placed the circular water sprayer nearby and had it rotating so that the birdbath and grass was bathed in gentle water droplets and she soon came back, landed and seemed to really like the cooling effect on offer. She then climbed onto the birdbath and opened her wings slightly and made some gentle purring, cooing noises....

  

I swear she was expressing happiness, joy....

  

On another blisteringly hot day when the sprayer was on, she came down, walked towards it and opened her wings up running into the water spray. Not once, but many times.

  

A further revelation into the unseen sides to these beautiful birds came with the male and female on the rear garden fence. They sat together, locked beaks like a kiss and then the male took his time gently preening her head feathers and the back of her neck as she made tiny happy sounds. They stayed together like that for several minutes, showing a gentle, softer side to their nature and demonstrating the deep bond between them. Into July and the pair started to bring their three youngsters to my garden, the nippers learning to use the birdbath for bathing and dipping food, the parents attentive as ever. Two of the youngsters headed off once large enough and strong enough.

  

I was privileged to be in close attendance as the last juvenile was brought down by the pair, taught to take food and then on a night in July, to soar and fly with it's mother in the evening sky as the light faded. She would swoop and twirl, and at regular intervals just touch the juvenile in flight with her wing tip feathers, as if to reassure it that she was close in attendance. What an amazing experience to view. A few days later, the juvenile, though now gaining independence and more than capable of tackling food scraps in the garden, was still on occasions demand feeding from it's mother who was now teaching him to take chicken breast, hotdogs or digestive biscuits and bury them in the garden beds for later delectation.

  

The juvenile also liked to gather up peanuts and bury them in the grass. On one occasion I witnessed a pair of rumbunctious Pica Pica (Magpies), chasing the young crow on rooftops, leaping at him no matter how hard he tried to get away. He defended himself well and survived the attacks, much to my relief.

  

Into August and the last youngster remained with the adults, though now was very independent even though he still spent time with his parents on rooftops, and shared food gathering duties with his mum.Hotdog sausages were their favourite choice, followed by fish fingers and digestive biscuits which the adult male would gather up three at a time. In October, the three Crows were still kings of the area, but my time observing them was pretty much over as I will only put food out now for the birds in the winter months.

  

Corvus Corone.... magnificently misunderstood by some!

  

Paul Williams June 4th 2021

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 40.434+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on June 9th 2021

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1321702139 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 5,283rd frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Monday 22nd October 2021 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #422. This is my 209th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 40.434+ Million people who have visited, favourited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty one metres at 09:56am on a summer morning on Thursday 3rd June 2021, off Hythe Avenue and Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length 340mm Shutter speed: 1/500s Aperture f/8.0 iso250 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON in position 1 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW Size L (8256 x 5504) 14 bit uncompressed file AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4470k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

    

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LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.29s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.32s

ALTITUDE: 61.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 90.40MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 48.90MB

    

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PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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**** This frame was chosen on March 24th 2020 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #33. This is my 178th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 35.500+ Million people who have visited, favourite and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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This Six seconds long exposure was taken standing in the River Cray at an altitude of Twenty two metres at 05:17am on Sunday 22nd March 2020, in the golden hour around sunrise, (Sunrise was at precisely 05:56am),off Rectory Lane in the grounds of Foots Cray Meadows, over the River Cray in Bexley, Kent, England.

  

The COVID-19 Coronavirus has seen myself and many others adopting self isoaltion for a number of weeks due to being on the Government and NHS register for 'Severely at risk', due to underlying health issues. So this was my last foray into the freedom of a sunrise shoot with nobody else around.

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Nikon D850 Focal length 24mm Shutter speed: Thirty seconds long exposure. Electronic front curtain. Aperture f/11.0 iso125 Image area FX (36 x 24) NEF RAW L (8256 x 5504). NEF RAW L (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus. AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. AF-S Priority selection: Focus. 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points.AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode: Aperture priority. Matrix metering. Auto ISO sensitivity control on (Max iso 800/ Miniumum shutter speed 125). White blance on: Auto1. Colour space: RGB. Actve D-lighting: Normal. Vignette control: Normal. Nikon Distortion control: Enabled.

  

Nikkor AF-S 16-35mm f/4.0G IF ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee 100 77mm adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.9 (3 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055Xprob Carbon Fiber Tripod 3 Sections. Neewer 9750 Gimbal tripod head with Arca Swiss standard quick release plate. Jessops Tripod bag.

    

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LATITUDE: N 51d 25m 18.85s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 15.77s

ALTITUDE: 22.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 93.0MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 37.70MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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This Twenty five seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of One metres, in the golden hour around sunrise at 05:56am on Sunday 1st September 2019 around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, bewteen the boat jetty and Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in Sidney, and Work commenced on the pier in 1993 with Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 32mm Shutter speed: 25 seconds long exposure. Aperture f/16.0 iso125 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.3 (1 stop) ND Grad soft resin.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.3MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 43.40MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 42.458+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on July 20th 2021

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1328859551 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 5,590th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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**** This frame was chosen on Thursday 9th June 2022 to appear on FLICKR EXPLORE (Highest Ranking: #396. This is my 215th photograph to be selected.

 

I am really thrilled to have a frame picked and most grateful to every one of the 42.458+ Million people who have visited, favorited and commented on this and all of my other photographs here on my FLICKR site. *****

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Sixty two metres at 12:31pm on an overcast summer afternoon on Thursday 15th July 2021, off Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

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THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PIGEONS

  

The Feral pigeon (Columba livia) gets a really bad name thanks to a whole bunch of popular misconceptions. Labelled as sky rats, flying ashtrays, rats with wings, there is even a name for extreme fear of them, peristerophobia.

  

Some say they spread communicable disease to humans, a myth banded by pest control companies making money out of extermination, and although they can naturally carry some disease like tuberculosis (just like many other bird species), being able to breed up to six times per year and being so commonly seen has lead to the belief that they cause damage and drive other species away (again, no scientific evidence supports this). Seen as a plague by mankind, who is... er... the biggest plague on the planet after all and more likely to infect pigeons with his own germs!

  

Being common these days seems to make some animals less appealing than others, and yet the pigeon is culturally and historically significant and utterly beautiful in terms of plumage. When was the last time you took the time to spend a few moments in the company of these gorgeous, fascinating birds, or talked to one.... Well do so soon, your life will be all the better for such interactions.

  

In world terms, Pigeons represent peace and good, symbolizing Prosperity and fertility, luck, fortune, peace and harmony, love and devotion and beauty and piety. It is believed that the Pigeon totem as your animal spirit guide will enter a good persons life after a period of suffering or hurt, restoring faith and the good in their world. It will symbolize Love and kindness, sacrifice and devotion, calmness and tranquility.

  

Their presence in dreams can have significant meaning if the dream is of catching one, killing one, a pigeon falling in the sky, finding a dead pigeon etc. Pablo Ruiz Picasso's 1949 lithograph on paper 'La Colombe', shows a white dove on a black background, widely considered a sign of peace. It was used to illustrate a poster at the 1949 Paris Peace Congress, and is now house in the Tate Gallery, London. The Lithograph went on to become a renowned international iconographic image referred to as 'The dove of peace'. The dove was in fact a Milanese pigeon which had been gifted to Picasso by friend and fellow artist Henri Émile Benoît Matisse.

  

They are a wild ancestor of domestic world pigeons. A common sight in UK gardens, and traditionally seen on London postcards of Piccadilly circus until the feeding of pigeons was banned around the year 2000, they can weigh up to 370g (8-13oz) with a wingspan of 34cms. There are approximately 550,000 breeding pairs in the UK, and they are protected by The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and happily on the Green status for conservation

  

With a name taken from the Latin word for Dove, there are around 350 recorded types of pigeon, the commonest being the Feral pigeon with an estimated European population of around 15 million. Feral pigeons are also called city doves, city pigeons, or street pigeons. They make up part of the group of columbiformes which includes the now extinct Dodo to which they are closely related. Wild pigeons live in coastal areas, whilst feral pigeons are more urban, and more often than not found in close proximity to mankind. Feral pigeons have a lifespan usually of between three to five years, much longer in captivity. Pigeons have an incredibly close link to mankind

  

Technically they are: Kingdom:Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class:Aves Order: Columbiformes

Family:Columbidae Genus:Columba Species:C. livia Subspecies:C. l. domestica

  

In the UK, Pigeons are covered under the "General Licences" and therefore it is illegal to kill them or destroy pigeon nests for any reason other than those listed under the general licences. They can be humanely culled by the land owner or their agent for a variety of reasons (mainly crop protection). At commercial premises where I worked for many years, Pigeons and babies were professionaly killed on a regular basis, shot with high powered air rifles and then heads dippeds into an acid substance... it was very bloody and extremely unpleasant to witness!

  

They are possibly the first domesticated animal in history and Charles Robert Darwin was one of the first and most famous pigeon breeder, who recognised their beauty and abilities and place in the natural order of things. On board HMS Beagle, he sailed from Plymouth Sound on 27th December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy. Scheduled for a two year voyage, it actually returned on 2nd October 1836. He published his work, 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life', in 1859 and it has long been considered the foundation of evolutionary biology. In the opening of the work, Darwin began with 'fancy pigeons' which were becoming fashionable to own and exhibit in London at the time.

  

By crossbreeding the many different species of fancy pigeon, Darwin showed that, contrary to a commonly held belief that there were two different species which spawned the multitude of domestic pigeons, they actually all came from one wild species: the Rock Dove (Columba livia).

  

Nathan Mayer Rothschild developed a system of communication faster than those of most governments at that time. It is believed that he used carrier pigeons and semaphore to communicate across the English Channel. Following the Battle of Waterloo he used this system to stunning effect. Through a clever stratagem, and foreknowledge of the outcome at Waterloo, Rothschild made an immense fortune by manipulating the London stock market.

  

Then In the early 1800s the Rothschild family set up a network of pigeon lofts throughout Europe using homing pigeons to carry information between its financial houses. This proved to be the fastest and most efficient method of communication at that time, and the speed of the service and the ability to send and receive information ahead of the competition helped the Rothschild family amass a fortune, which still exists today. There are medals from 1870 commemorating the pigeon post in Paris.

  

Pigeons are highly intelligent, one of the few birds who can actually recognise themselves in a mirror, tests proving that they were capable of identifying themselves over other pigeons in photographs even with a five to seven second delay and they could even recognize humans in photographs as well. Proving that their self cognitive abilities were higher than a three year old child (who struggled with photographic recognition of a two second delay), pigeons were trained to discriminate real-time self-image using mirrors as well as videotaped self-image, and proved that pigeons can recognize video images that reflect their movements as self-image.

  

They proved themselves capable of being able to learn the alphabet in trials. They have been used to predict the weather with hearing far superior to that of humans in the very low frequency range that allows them to detect incoming storms not yet on the radar. They can assist in message delivery, help in search and rescue missions and even carry wartime messages across enemy lines, dating back to Greek and Roman times, and then forwards to both World Wars by the British Intelligence.

  

During the first world war, pigeons were dropped from an aeroplane in batches in harnesses with parachutes in order to send and retrieve messages from the resistance. A male pigeon in 1918 named Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre, an honour bestowed on foreign troops by the French Army, after saving 194 US troops who were pinned down by enemy fire. Despite being shot several times, he still managed to deliver the message attached to him. In history pigeons have been recorded as far back as 3000BC and records show that in the 5th Century AD, both Egypt and Syria used them to send and receive messages. Greek poet Anacreon wrote poems of his tame pigeon over 2000 years ago in which he described the bird's role in carrying a love letter to the poet's lover and how the bird drank from his cup and ate from his hand.

  

Some scholars believe that man's connections with pigeons go as far back as Neolithic man 10,000 years ago. An archaeological discovery of lifelike pigeon images beside the figurines of the Mother goddess, dating from the Bronze Age (2400-1500 BC) in Sumerian Mesopotamia, links to worship also in Crete where the Goddess was depicted with Doves upon her head. Pigeons were also sacrificed to Aphrodite (Venus), the Goddess of love in Greco-Roman culture. The Dove was also the symbol of Demeter (Ceres). Astarte, goddess of fertility and love was often times depicted with a pigeon in ancient Phoenician tradition and Ishtar, mother to the Sumerian people also. Goddesses Aphrodite and Venus from Greek and Roman culture were similarly often depicted with symbolic pigeons. They are highly revered in religions including Hindi where it was believed that pigeons were messengers of deity of death, Yama.

  

Also in Muslim and Sikh traditions as well as Christianity. Some Sikhs will ceremoniously feed pigeons in honour of Guru Gobind Singh, a high priest who was renowned as a friend to pigeons. The Old Testament dove of Noah and the New Testament dove of the Holy Spirit are the ancestors of the dovecote birds of the past and today’s urban pigeons. In China, it is believed that with the coming of Spring, a Sparrow hawk would transform into a pigeon and vice versa, repeating the opposite transformation at the end of the season.

  

Pigeons have been recorded flying at more than 92mph and the average speed is around 78mph, they can also reach altitudes of 6,000 feet. Contrary to the rumour mill, pigeons are very clean birds and very little evidence exists to show that they can spread disease to humans.

  

Generally pigeons mate for life and are monogamous, both incubate and care for their young, and they are amazingly social creatures found in large groups. Pigeons have also saved lives on sinking ships by being released to alert nearby people, and some pigeons have received honours and awards for their part in saving lives. They have been trained to save lives at sea by recognising the red and yellow life jackets of victims, and even being able to view the UV spectrum. They can use landmarks to recognise and retrace routes, and use the sun as as a guide and an internal magnetic compass.

  

During a study in 2016, four pigeons built up a vocabulary of between 26 and 58 written English words, they could identify visual patterns and therefore tell them apart. The birds could even identify words they hadn't seen before.

  

Researchers at University of California Davis Medical Center put 16 pigeons in a room with magnified biopsies of potential breast cancers. If the pigeons correctly identified them as either benign or malignant, they got a treat, Once trained, their percentages of correctly identifying the biopsies was between 85-99% accurate.

  

Pigeons have been recorded regularly using the subway in the United states of America, hoping on and off subway cars and seeming to understand the direction of the journey. They also on occasions perform aerial backflips, seemingly just for fun. They see the world with five spectral bands, a kaleidoscope of colour compared to humans triple system of colour perception.

  

These are magnificent birds that so often fall victim to mankind's prejudice and dislike. Take a look at their ornate, beautiful plumage, the many markings and differences in coloration, and think about their history and the incredible journey they have made through the centuries.

  

Give them some love, they have certainly earned it!

  

Paul Williams May 2021

©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

    

Nikon D850 Focal length: 600mm Shutter speed: 1/500s Aperture: f/8.0 iso500 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON (Position 1) 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1 (4480k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: Neutral (Sharpening +2)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.24s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.20s

ALTITUDE: 62.00m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 91.0MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 50.60MB

      

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

 

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Five hundred and fifty five metres, at 09:34am on Friday 13th September 2019 off Trans Canada Highway 1 around thirty kilometres West of the city of Kamloops, looking out over Kamloops lake in from a viewpoint West of the Tobiano Resort in British Columbia, Canada.

  

Th distant smokestacks are part of the Wood mills industrial section . Domtar's Kamloops Mill is located at Mission flats, opening in 1965 and nowadays uses third party sawmills softwood fiber to manufacture Northern bleached and unbleached softwood kraft pulp for the Domestic, Chinese and South Asian markets. It also produces renewable green energy for the operation and exports to the provincial power grid.

  

Nikon D850 Focal length: 220mm Shutter speed: 1/500s Aperture f/16.0 iso250 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX) Hand held with Nikon Image stabilization VR enabled on Normal mode Focus mode: AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking Area Mode: AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable Exposure mode: Aperture priority exposure Nikon Back button focusing enabled Metering mode: Matrix metering ISO Sensitivity: Auto White balance: Natural light auto, 0, 0 Colour space: Adobe RGB Nikon Distortion control: On Picture control: Auto High ISO NR: On (Normal) Vignette control: Normal Active D-lighting: Auto

  

Nikkor AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150Con adapter for Lee 100 rings.Lee 100 67mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 Circular polariser glass filter. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.

  

LATITUDE: N 50d 45m 1.60s

LONGITUDE: W 120d 43m 35.10s

ALTITUDE: 555.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.5MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 34.60MB

    

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 36.524+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on June 22nd 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1250611611 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,378th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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This Two and a half seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of One metres, in the golden hour around sunrise at 06:10am on Sunday 1st September 2019 around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, bewteen the boat jetty and Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in Sidney, and Work commenced on the pier in 1993 with Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 24mm Shutter speed: Six seconds long exposure. Aperture f/16.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.6 (2 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.0MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 34.60MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2019 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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.

  

I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 33.828+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on October 11th 2019

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1180152688 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,744th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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This thirty seconds long exposure was taken at an altitude of Zero metres, seated on a fold up camping chair at 06:35am on Saturday 21st September 2019 around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, between the boat jetty and Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

A thick band of fog quickly rolled across the sea from the Southern Gulf Islands, enveloping the Salish sea until I could literally see only a few feet in front of me.

  

The Fish market on Beacon Avenue has long been a popular location in Sidney and is situated on the pier close to Beacon Park and the new bandstand.

 

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Nikon D850. Focal length 50mm Shutter speed Thirty seconds seconds long exposure (Electronic front-curtain) Aperture f/16.0 iso160 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.9 (3 stops) ND Grad soft resin.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 53.70s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.44s

ALTITUDE: 0.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 90.1MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 29.50MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

©All photographs on this site are copyright: ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2021 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams). No image may be used as source material for paintings, drawings, sculptures, or any other art form without permission and/or compensation to ©DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams)

  

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This photograph was taken at 13:13pm on Friday 20th May 2016 off the Trans Canada Highway 1, between Spences Bridge and Gold pan Provincial Park, on the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada.

  

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Nikon D800 Focal length: 300mm Shutter speed: 1/100s Aperture: f/5.6 iso100 RAW (14Bit) Uncompressed file size L (7360 x 4912) FX Hand held with Nikkor VR vibration reduction on. Nikon back focus button enabled. AF-C Continuous point focus with 3-D tracking. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto white balance. Colour space: Adobe RGB Auto white balance

  

Nikkor AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6G ED VR. Power Up 95mm UV filter. Nikon MB-D12 battery grip. Two Nikon EN-EL15 batteries. Nikon DK-17M 1.2x Magnifying Eyepiece. Nikon DK-19 soft rubber eyecup. Digi-Chip 64GB Class 10 UHS-1 SDXC card. Lowepro Transporter camera strap. Lowepro Vertex 200 AW Photo/ 15.4" Notebook Backpack camera bag.

  

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RAW (TIFF) FILE SIZE: 103.00MB NEF FILE SIZE: 75.10MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) SIZE: 47.60MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D800 Firmware versions A 1.10 B 1.10 L 2.009 (Lens distortion control version 2)

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU processor. AMD Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB SATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX2 Version 2.10.3 64bit. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

©All photographs on this site are copyright: DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) 2011 – 2020 & GETTY IMAGES ®

  

No license is given nor granted in respect of the use of any copyrighted material on this site other than with the express written agreement of DESPITE STRAIGHT LINES (Paul Williams) ©

  

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I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 36.675+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on July 7th 2020

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1254577339 MOMENT ROYALTY FREE COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 4,410th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Two metres, at 06:510am on Wednesday 1st September 2019 around sunrise off 1st Street and Bevan Avenue, between the boat jetty and Bevan Avenue Fishing Pier in beautiful Sidney by the sea on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  

The Bevan Avenue fishing pier is one of the main focal points in Sidney, and Work commenced on the pier in 1993 with Phase one, a 90 metre straight section being completed in 1996. A year later the 110 metre Phase two section was completed.

  

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Nikon D850. Focal length 24mm Shutter speed: Four seconds long exposure Aperture f/13.0 iso64 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L (8256 x 5504 FX). Focus mode AF-C focus 51 point with 3D- tracking. AF-Area mode single point & 73 point switchable. Exposure mode - Aperture priority exposure. Nikon Back button focusing enabled. Matrix metering. ISO Sensitivity: Auto. White balance: Natural light auto. Colour space Adobe RGB. Nikon Distortion control on. Picture control: Auto. High ISO NR on. Vignette control: normal. Active D-lighting Auto.

  

Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/4G ED VR. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 77mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 0.9 (3 stops) ND Grad soft resin. Lee SW150 Filters field pouch.Nikon EN-EL15a battery.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod 3 Sections (Payload: 5.6kgs). Manfrotto 327RC2 Light Duty Grip Ball Magnesium Tripod Head (Payload: 5.5kgs). Manfrotto quick release plate 200PL-14. Jessops Tripod bag.Nikon MC-DC2 remote shutter release cable.

  

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LATITUDE: N 48d 38m 52.63s

LONGITUDE: W 123d 23m 36.62s

ALTITUDE: 2.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF: 89.9MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 27.50MB

     

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18) LF 1.00

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.3.1 11/07/2019). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

   

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I was originally enrolled into the GETTY IMAGES collection as a contributor on April 9th 2012, and when links with FLICKR were terminated in March 2014, I was retained and fortunate enough to be signed up via a second contract, both of which have proved to be successful with sales of my photographs all over the world now handled exclusively by them.

    

On November 12th 2015 GETTY IMAGES unveiled plans for a new stills upload platform called ESP (Enterprise Submission Platform), to replace the existing 'Moment portal', and on November 13th I was invited to Beta test the new system prior to it being officially rolled out in December. ESP went live on Tuesday December 15th 2015 and has smoothed out the upload process considerably.

  

These days I take a far more leisurely approach to my photographic exploits, a Nikon D850 FX Pro body as my trusted companion, I travel light with less constraints and more emphasis on the pure capture of the beauty that I see, more akin to my original persuits and goals some five decades previously when starting out. I would like to say a huge and heartfelt 'THANK YOU' to GETTY IMAGES, and the 31.612+ Million visitors to my FLICKR site.

  

***** Selected for sale in the GETTY IMAGES COLLECTION on January 19th 2019

  

CREATIVE RF gty.im/1095384742 MOMENT OPEN COLLECTION**

  

This photograph became my 3,498th frame to be selected for sale in the Getty Images collection and I am very grateful to them for this wonderful opportunity.

  

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Photograph taken at an altitude of Forty five metres at 11:07am on Wednesday December 26th 2018 off Woolwich Road and Treetops Close in the grounds of Abbey Wood open space in Bexleyheath, Kent, England.

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 14mm Shutter speed 1/60s Aperture f/13.0 iso80 RAW (14 bit uncompressed) Image size L 8256 x 5504 FX). Colour space Adobe RGB. Handheld. AF-C focus 51 point with 3-D tracking. Area mode single. Manual exposure. Matrix metering. Auto 0 white balance. Nikon Distortion control on. Vignette control Normal.

  

Nikkor AF-S 14-24mm F/2.8G ED IF. Nikon EN-EL15a battery. Matin quick release neckstrap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag. Nikon GP-1 GPS module.

  

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LATITUDE: N 51d 29m 15.10s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 7m 51.50s

ALTITUDE: 45.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB (NEF 94.5MB)

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 20.30MB

  

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PROCESSING POWER:

 

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.03 (16/12/2018) LD Distortion Data 2.017 (20/3/18)

 

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB DATA storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit (Version 1.2.11 15/03/2018). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit (Version 1.4.7 15/03/2018). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 1.3.2 15/03/2018). Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.