Advocates of a flat Earth, however, were not deterred: on 11 May 1904 Lady Elizabeth Anne Blount, who would go on to be influential in the formation of the Flat Earth Society, hired a commercial photographer to use a telephoto lens camera to take a picture from Welney of a large white sheet she had placed, the bottom edge near the surface of the river, at Rowbotham's original position 6 miles away.