Bliss

Bliss, originally known as Bucolic Green Hills, is the default wallpaper of Windows XP, fully bought from Corbis by Microsoft for use as XP's main branding image. It depicts a green hill in Sonoma County, California, USA, just after the rain had went off. It was taken by Charles O'Rear in January 1996 while visiting his girlfriend. O'Rear also took XP's well-liked Red moon desert wallpaper, along with Highway Winding Through Countryside, which was used in an MSN Explorer 7 demo.

With Bliss being the default wallpaper of Windows XP and the subject of many memes, it is easily the most well known Windows wallpaper of all time, and it has been seen by millions of people all over the world. It also appears on a card in cards.dll, where it is cropped to just the clouds. Several edits have been produced over the years, as well as shots of green hills inspired by this one.

Background
Photographer Charles O'Rear was visiting his girlfriend Daphne Irwin in January 1996. He stopped by the side of Sonoma Highway (California State Route 12 and 121) to take a few pictures of the hills with his Mamiya RZ67 medium-format camera, including the picture that would become Bliss. During this time the hill appeared to be greener than usual as a storm had just passed and there had been other frequent winter rains. Along with that, the vineyards had been removed from the field sometime years earlier due to a phylloxera infection; both factors combined made it the perfect opportunity for him to take a memorable, dream-like photo.

He would submit it to the Westlight stock photo agency (which he co-founded with Craig Aurness, who took the XP Beta sample picture Surfer) under the name of Bucolic Green Hills (with an ID of 71810), along with a vertical variant (ID of 71811). In 1998, Bill Gates-owned Corbis would buy Westlight, incorporating their photos into their evergrowing stock photo library. Corbis scanned best-selling images and added them to the online database, meaning several companies have licensed Bliss in the past, although there are not many known examples of its previous usage.

Inclusion in Windows XP
In 2000, Microsoft contacted O'Rear via Corbis about purchasing the photo. With Bliss, Microsoft went a step further than merely licensing it: they bought the full rights to the image meaning no company would ever be able to license the photo from Corbis again, as the image was often used as part of XP's marketing and the Luna theme is modelled around its color scheme. It was purchased for an undisclosed amount of money in the low six figures; O'Rear cannot reveal the exact amount without violating a non disclosure agreement. He did not receive the full cost as Corbis handled the sale. As a result of its Microsoft acquisition, it was permanently removed from Corbis' website and has never been available on Getty Images or other sites that Corbis cross-licensed photos to. The vertical shot was also included in the acquisition, as O'Rear cannot release it due to his agreement with Microsoft.

As Microsoft had now become the image's owner, O'Rear had to send them the original film along with paperwork. As the cost was so high, delivery services refused to send it, so Microsoft had to buy O'Rear a flight to their offices, where he delivered the film in person. Several Microsoft employees asked him for 10x8" prints of Bliss. Despite this, the version used in XP is identical to the version that was for sale on Corbis, rather than using a rescanned version by Microsoft.

Another photo taken by O'Rear, Red moon desert, appeared as the default wallpaper in several pre-release builds, but was allegedly changed due to testers complaining about its resemblance to buttocks. While these complaints may have been made, it is still likely that Bliss was always intended to be the default wallpaper, as it appeared with Luna for the first time in build 2415, which features blue and green colors too. The Windows XP branding wallpaper also briefly replaced Bliss as the default wallpaper, which could suggest Microsoft were reconsidering the default wallpaper at various points.

Authenticity
For many years, the location of Bliss was unknown to the general public. There was a wide range of guesses as to where it was taken, including France, England, Switzerland, the North Otago region of New Zealand, southeastern Washington, Ireland, and the Alentejo region of Portugal; the latter two are a result of Dutch XP naming it "Ireland" and Portuguese XP naming it "Alentejo" respectively. Many users also speculated it was not even a real photo at all.

The photo is virtually unedited contrary to popular belief, as many people believe that it was a digital composite image of a hill combined with a separate sky photo. Microsoft are often believed to have cropped the hill and added extra saturation, however the former was done by Corbis when they digitized best-selling Westlight images, while the image was already saturated to begin with due to O'Rear using the Velvia film. It has also been speculated that Corbis added extra saturation themselves, but this does not appear to be the case. The original 4510x3627 TIF from Corbis has also surfaced as it was available from Fujifilm's site. It is likely the exact same copy that Microsoft purchased from Corbis, as it contains Corbis metadata and uses the Corbis RGB format (which has a rather problematic color space, resulting in some programs making it look brighter than it actually is).

In 2016, an uncropped version of Bliss appeared in a Toronto Star article. The metadata states it was provided directly by Microsoft; it is likely a new scan, as the colors appeared to have faded over time. This version features elements that are not fully present in the Corbis version. While many people have believed this to be the original version and that O'Rear or another party added extra saturation, this is most likely not true, as the Velvia film itself already saturated the photo's appearance. There are also older scans that show the missing elements from the Corbis version but feature the same colors.

Legacy
Due to it being the default wallpaper of XP, along with the image used to market the operating system, Bliss has become iconic. It is known to be one of the most viewed photos of all time, as a result of XP's success and many people not bothering to change the wallpaper. David Clark of British magazine commented on Bliss that "it's attractive, easy on the eye and doesn't detract from other items that might be on the screen are all contributing factors." He believes it was chosen as "it's an unusually inviting image of a verdant landscape and one that promotes a sense of wellbeing in desk-bound computer users." In an interview with O'Rear in 2010, regarding Bliss, he stated: "I didn’t ‘create’ this. I just happened to be there at the right moment and documented it. If you are Ansel Adams and you take a particular picture of Half Dome and want the light a certain way, you manipulate the light. He was famous for going into the dark room and burning and dodging. Well, this is none of that." He also believes it will be mentioned in his obituary.

As the default wallpaper of Windows XP, Bliss has become iconic in online culture. Several meme edits of Bliss have been made, along with tribute photos inspired by the original. It also has the most detailed backstory out of Windows wallpapers as a whole, as a result of both its popularity and the circumstances that led to it being shot to begin with.

Bliss also holds sentimental value for O'Rear, due to it both being his most successful image and it being taken while visiting his girlfriend. When O'Rear gave Microsoft his phone number, he hoped that they would call him to take a photo for Windows 8. This did not happen, and it is unlikely Microsoft will ever do so for later versions of Windows. With Windows 10, Microsoft hired photographers Steve McCurry and Chad Copeland instead, while Windows 11 features photorealistic CGI works by various design studios such as Six N. Five.

O'Rear's alternate shots
The shot of Bliss that appears in XP is not the only shot O'Rear took while at the hill, and there are at least three other shots from the same photoshoot. There is a vertical shot with a slightly darker sky, which was also submitted to Westlight. It appears that Microsoft have bought the rights to this too, as O'Rear has stated he cannot release it nor has it been made available on other stock photo sites. There are two other shots which are exclusive to O'Rear's PhotoShelter and were never available from Westlight, Corbis, or other sites. One is a horizontal shot with a darker sky and grass along with different clouds, while there is another vertical shot available too.

There are also versions of the Bliss shot used in XP that are less cropped than the Corbis version, showing more of the small hill on the left.

Microsoft edits
Over the years, Microsoft have created several edited versions of Bliss. Shortly after XP's release, they released a screensaver version of Bliss with different, animated clouds. Only the top of the hill is present, as the rest has been cropped off. Windows Mobile 2003's default wallpaper is also a heavily cropped version featuring new clouds and a Windows flag in the bottom right. Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition also includes a theme titled Bliss, which includes a lower res, more cropped version of Bliss with an added Windows flag, along with removing some clouds and making it brighter.

The downloadable Christmas Theme 2003 also contains two wallpapers titled Snowman and Xmas Tree, both of which feature a cropped, snowy version of Bliss with a snowman and a Christmas tree on them respectively. Similarly, in 2020 Microsoft shared a tweet showing four brightened versions of Bliss with a snow overlay added to them. A white cutout is also added on top of the hill, and progressively gets less transparent in each image.

A version of Bliss with a Texas Longhorn bull humorously added to the center of the image appears in Longhorn build 5001. It appears that the bull photo was taken off a random photo on the internet. As very few 50xx builds have been leaked, it is unknown how long this version of Bliss was used for, though it was most likely used until around 501x. There was also uncertainty about whether the wallpaper or even the screenshots of the build itself are real, however in 2020 build 5001 finally leaked, confirming its authenticity.

A version of Bliss also appears in Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, under the name of Energy Bliss. It is based on the original, but with a noticeably different sky and clouds, and several light effects have been added, giving it a more modern, digital look. It has also been cropped to only include the top of the hill, like with the screensaver version. It is at 1600x1200, compared to 800x600 used by XP's wallpapers.

Shots inspired by Bliss
Over the years, various people have visited the location and took photos of the hill now, as a result of Bliss' popularity, along with taking shots of other similar hills. Simon Goldin of the Swedish photographic duo Goldin+Senneby would take a picture of the hill in November 2006 titled "After Microsoft", showing that the view is now covered in grapevines again, as the phylloxera infection that led to them being removed was several years ago at this point. Another example of these photos is one by James Smith on Alamy, taken in October 2016. In 2021, YouTuber Andrew Levitt travelled to the Palouse, USA with friends to capture a series of photos very similar to Bliss, as well as to Bliss' location; these photos were released as wallpapers on his Patreon.

Microsoft New Zealand
In 2004, Microsoft New Zealand released a New Zealand version of the Bliss wallpaper with several sheep present. It was taken near Oamaru, North Otago, New Zealand by an unnamed international tourist; Jeroen Jordens of Morcomm Systems, who accompanied the tourist, recognized the strong similarity to Bliss and sent it to Microsoft New Zealand, who made it available for download and later as part of the Royale theme along with New Bliss and an unrelated wallpaper titled Bluff. It appears the lighting was altered to give it a brighter appearance. Edited versions of the wallpaper, including winter and Queen's birthday themed versions, were also released for download.

Microsoft New Zealand's downloadable Royale theme, released in 2005, uses a wallpaper titled New Bliss, rather than using Energy Bliss. It is unknown where exactly it originates, although it appears to be heavily edited and it could possibly have came from a stock photo. This wallpaper has been falsely spread around as being a Longhorn wallpaper, where it is titled Aero Bliss.

Official CGI recreations
In 2021, Microsoft included a version of Bliss created with what seems to be CGI artificial fur, in the Microsoft Pride 2021 wallpaper pack. Later that year, Six N. Five were commissioned by Microsoft to create a wallpaper pack related to Windows nostalgia called Nostalgic Celebrations, including a photorealistic CGI landscape inspired by Bliss, as well as wallpapers featuring Solitaire, Clippy and Paint. These wallpapers are in 4089x2726, although 1080p versions for use as Microsoft Teams backgrounds were also released.

Names in other languages
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Trivia

 * As a result of Bliss' popularity, several inaccurate versions have been spread around the internet, mostly notably one which is stretched and has added brightness, along with one where a lot of the sky has been shrunken.
 * Due to being the default wallpaper, it is frequently referred to as “the Windows XP wallpaper”.
 * In 2020, A Redditor posted a picture of a Russian geography textbook featuring Bliss with lights on it. The version of Bliss featured is the original, without Corbis' cropping. It is possible this could be an instance of Bliss being licensed during 1996-98.