The Windows XP default wallpaper “Bliss” was shot on Fujifilm Velvia with a Mamiya RZ67 in Sonoma County in January 1996 and never digitally manipulated.
Key Takeaways
Photographer Charles O’Rear used a Mamiya RZ67 medium-format camera and Fujifilm Velvia film; he later said 35mm film would not have produced the same color saturation.
The hill was bare because a phylloxera infestation had cleared the vineyards years prior, creating the unusually clean green landscape.
Microsoft paid what O’Rear describes as the second-largest single-image payment ever made to a photographer, reportedly in the low six figures, and required physical delivery of the original film.
O’Rear later regretted the flat-fee deal and wished he had negotiated a per-view royalty instead.
The hill has since returned to vineyard use; the Goldin+Senneby re-creation “After Microsoft” (2006) documents the transformed site.
