Bliss!

This may be one of the most costliest photographs ever! Second only to a very controversial photo apparently!

There would not be many who have not seen this photo!

Even if you were an Apple fan! Not the fruit by the way!

The picture is called BLISS!

It was originally titled Bucolic Green Hills!

Ok now have some patience while the system loads!

Yes! It is the default computer wallpaper of Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system and is a virtually unedited picture of a bright green hill and blue sky captured by Charles O’Rear in 1996.


Apparently microsoft not only paid a bomb for the snap but also there is a back story which involves insect infestation!

Napa Valley spent most of the 1990s trying desperately to curb the spread of phylloxera, a microscopic pest that was devastating its grapes. By the time the epidemic had run its course in 1999, some 50,000 acres of fields had been decimated!

Although the cost for growers was astronomical—half a billion dollars in total—the landscape of Northern California had never looked more idyllic. Endless rows of grapevines had been replaced by a lush carpet of grass, dotted here and there with wildflowers!

It was this vision of Sonoma County that flashed by Charles O’Rear’s car window as he drove down Highway 121 in 1998. Although he was a professional photographer, with work featured in National Geographic and the Los Angeles Times, O’Rear wasn’t on assignment that Friday afternoon.

But he still had one eye on the region’s rolling hills. It was January, and after the winter rains, “the grasses turn green and I know the chances of finding these beautiful hillsides are really good,” he recalled. “I’m going to be more prepared. I’m going to be more alert.”

And then, he saw it. “My God!” he thought. “The grass is perfect! It’s green! The sun is out, there’s some clouds.’”

So he stopped his car, pulled out his medium-format camera, and took a few photos using color Fujifilm! Yes! Film and not digital! Irony!


Those brilliant greens and pure blues were totally unedited when O’Rear uploaded them to Corbis, a stock photo and image licensing site founded by Bill Gates. A few years later, he got a call from Microsoft asking to use his shot of Sonoma County as the default background for its newest operating system!

And by the way he had to personally hand deliver the photo since the cost of insurance (because of the high price of course!) was so high that FedEx refused to deliver such a huge responsibility!

Now no one knows how much Microsoft paid for the snap but it is the second largest sum received by a living photographer for a single photo!

I know! Even I would not get sleep if you do not know which is the first! That is apparently a photo of Bill Clinton hugging Monica Lewinsky!


Hope that makes you sleep! Or not!

Shubh ratri anyway!

Drew the sketch only because the outline of his face in b and w was so good! Loved sketching it in spite of less time and so much work!