Stepwilk,
Wrong, granted the second two photos are as you describe but the first one is almost identical to a whole host of shots I've taken from the flight deck of a 747 on the Atlantic tracks. All done with nothing more sophisticated than a Canon 450D and a Sigma 18-200mm lens.
RVSM surprises even experienced passengers when they see it first hand, especially if you're looking at a 'heavy'.
1000ft is quite close, and the turns described were either at a waypoint or the flightcrew changing the offset (0, 1 or 2 nm) to aviod sitting on top of each other in case of decompression, severe turbulence etc.
LD