Img8 (Windows Vista)

img8, originally known as Leaf 02, is a wallpaper included in Windows Vista. It was taken by Microsoft employee Mike Swanson on March 21, 2002. It is a close-up of a banana leaf at the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, Key West, Florida, USA.

History
On March 21, 2002, Swanson was on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Key West, Florida. Once he got off, he walked past the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum and noticed a backlit banana leaf leaning over the sidewalk, as he liked the way it was backlit. Using his Nikon COOLPIX 990, he quickly captured the photo before leaving. Jenny Lam would later include it as a wallpaper in Vista, from Beta 2 onwards. Swanson did not want any money out of the photo as he wanted to protect his photography as a hobby as opposed to a profession. He described the fact that many people have his wallpaper on their systems as "wild", and similar to Peter Burian with Autumn he did not consider it special at the time of it being taken.

Judging by the filename hidden in the metadata for the version of the wallpaper included in Vista Beta 2, it seems it was cropped from the 1920x1200 version rather than using the original source image. It was most likely resized to 1920x1440 for the RTM release, due to its somewhat blurry look.