In 1996, veteran National Geographic photographer Charles OโRear was visiting his then-girlfriend/future wife Daphne Irwin in Napa Valley on a fine Friday afternoon. Little did he know, he was just moments away from capturing what is believed to be the most viewed photograph in history as the default desktop wallpaper for Windows XP: an image of a verdant Californian hill officially dubbed โBlissโ by Microsoft.
At the time, OโRearโs ambitions obviously werenโt as lofty as the end result. He was apparently in the process of putting together a book about the wine country with Daphne Irwin and had been scoping out photo opportunities after a storm passed over plus the recent winter rain left the grass looking particularly green.
โThere it was! My God, the grass is perfect! Itโs green! The sun is out, thereโs some clouds,โ Charles OโRear recalled thinking to himself as he drove along the Sonoma Highway (California State Route 12 and 121).
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OโRear pulled over somewhere near the NapaโSonoma county line and set up his Mamiya RZ67 medium-format camera onto a tripod, which had been loaded up with Fujifilmโs Velvia โ the latter commonly used by nature photographers to saturate colours.
โI got out, took a couple of pictures, and kept on going,โ Charles OโRear told PCWorld.
Years later when people would accuse โBlissโ of being digitally manipulated โ by Microsoft or otherwise โ OโRear would simply chalk up the striking visuals to that exact combination of camera and film type.
โI didnโt create this. I just happened to be there at the right moment and documented it.โ
โIt made the difference and, I think, helped the โBlissโ photograph stand out even more,โ he explained.
โI think that if I had shot it with 35mm, it would not have nearly the same effect.โ
But one thing is for certain. That scenery resembles something slightly different these days.
So how exactly did Chuck and โBlissโ โ originally dubbed โBucolic Green Hillsโ โ get to the party? OโRear initially sold the image to an agency known as Westlight for use as a stock photo. Two years after that, Westlight would be acquired by Bill Gatesโ Seattle-based stock photo company Corbis, which opted to digitize its best-selling images. And two years after that, when the Microsoft design team was in search of wallpapers for Windows XP, they stumbled upon โBliss.โ
Smelling an instant winner, Microsoft didnโt want to simply license the image for use as Windows XPโs default desktop wallpaper. They wanted to pay for the whole damn thing and own it outright. Offering Charles OโRear what is reportedly the second-largest payment ever made to a photographer for a single image โ described as โin the low six figuresโ due to a strict confidentiality agreement; strongly hinted to be around the $100,000 benchmark โ there was just one last obstacle in the way.
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To seal the deal, or so to speak, Charles OโRear was required to send Microsoft the original film containing โBlissโ before finalising this entire transaction by signing the paperwork. The only problem was delivering said film. When couriers and delivery services cottoned on to the shipmentโs value, they refused to take on the job as it was worth far more than the insurance would cover โ even FedEx.
Thankfully, the modern software company had an equally modern solution. Gates & Co bought OโRear a plane ticket, allowing him to personally deliver the snapshot that would eventually become part of Microsoftโs $200 million โYes You Canโ advertising campaign and achieve cultural icon status.
Between its release back in August 2001 all the way until August 2012, Windows XP was the most widely used operating system, with countless users still holding it down for the OG operating system despite Microsoft discontinuing support โ hence why Charles OโRearโs โBlissโ enjoys its status as the most viewed photograph in history.
