The story of the desktop background of legendary Windows XP has become mythical, it has been seen by billions of people in the world - and in the meantime it has disappeared ...
This is one of the photos that went into history, went around the globe - and do you know what the story lies behind it?
Green and blue, harmonious, little clouds - an artificial picture prototype. Windows XP had realistic image as a desktop background.
XP is one of the most used and successful Windows operating systems ever. This photo opened a new world of virtuosity.
Original name Bliss, photography was made in Napa Valley, with author Charles "Chuck" O'Rear, photojournalist from Los Angeles Times and National Geographic.
He is specializes in photographing vineyards, which is a great passion in Missouri. In 1980, Chuck founded Westlight, a photographic agency.
Sixteen years later, he regularly drove to San Francisco, where his wife Daphne lived. Without his camera he did not go anywhere.
In January 1996, he stood beside the landscape. The beam was perfectly green, the sun in zenith, several clouds. He took out the camera Mamiya R767 in which he put Fujifilm Velvia.
"This is a combination that has helped me to highlight this photo." When I got to the location, weather has changed quite a bit. "I did four pictures, but they didn't fit into vineyard concept," Chuck told Microsoft's site 2014.
Two years later, in 1998, his company Westlight, bought a certain Bill Gates, who had a great ambition to build a great digital video store.
His company became Corbis, and the scenery near the Sonoma Highway became a regular photo that anyone could buy. Chuck remained working for Corbis, photographing vineyards around the world, and then in year 2000, he was contacted by Windows XP development team.
"We do not want to buy a photo, we want all the rights for it," they told him, and he agreed, with the clause not to say to anybody how much money he got for photo.
Rumors say that he got the second biggest check in the history of the rights for the photo. Most expensive is Bill Clinton's and Monica Lewinsky's.
"I did not know what they were going to do with it, they might want a photo that is brilliant, but I think that even in Microsoft nobody assumed how much success they would make in the future," he said.
He could not send it by mail, because no company wanted to take such a risk - because of its value. Microsoft sent him an airplane ticket and said, "Come visit us and bring us a picture".
Photo by critics did not go well, they said it was too simple, and the landscape would not attract anyone. They were wrong.
That photo become one of the most beloved scenes in history.
Today, this landscape no longer exists. There are wine fields where legendary Californian wines are created.
Many believed that the photo was created in Ireland, France, England, New Zealand, the Netherlands ...
Today, this area looks like this ...
Hear the story from Chuck himself!
(2014, posted on the day that support for XP ended.)