How landscape of most famous Windows XP wallpaper in history changed

Twenty-seven years ago, the iconic screensaver image of a rolling hill under a blue sky with white clouds, known as ‘Bliss,’ graced the desktops of Windows XP users worldwide, emanating tranquility and peace. Contrary to popular belief, this image was not artificially generated but was a real, untouched photograph taken by Charles O’Rear, a National Geographic photographer, in 1996.

While journeying on a highway in California, USA, O’Rear came across a picturesque landscape that he felt compelled to capture. The scene comprised a gentle slope blanketed with vibrant green grass against a backdrop of a serene sky dotted with white clouds. The resulting image was a visually pleasing landscape that radiated calmness and tranquility.

"Furthermore, the author of the image explains that it was rainy season and, in fact, recent rains enhanced the greenness of the landscape and the cleanliness of the atmosphere."

Microsoft, the company, saw the image and decided to buy the rights to 'Bliss,' attracted by its aesthetics, for a figure that they have never revealed.

The change produced

However, 27 years after rising to global fame, this hill's appearance is no longer the same. Currently, its uniform green tapestry surface has vanished, and people have converted it into agricultural land, using it to plant vines.

"And, in fact, before taking the famous photograph, the land had already functioned as a vineyard. However, a year before the phyloxera plague attacked the vines, it had ended this crop. Consequently, only green, lawn-like grass remained, freeing the field of any other plants."

A year after the photo, the land became suitable for agriculture once again and its owners replanted vines, actually restoring the appearance it had previously. This is the transformation that the rolling green hill of Windows XP has undergone, 27 years later

Iconic 'Bliss' image, forever remembered

Microsoft named the image ‘Bliss’, and since the release of Windows XP in 2001, it has been viewed by at least a billion people. Artists Goldin+Senneby, intrigued by this ubiquitous backdrop to our digital lives, recreated the iconic image with O’Rear as part of their work ‘After Microsoft (2006–07)’. They pondered over the globalized landscape this image represented and its impact on our collective imagination.

People guessed that the location of 'Bliss' ranged from France to Ireland to New Zealand, but someone actually captured it in California. Once, Microsoft’s engineering department contacted O’Rear to confirm this and debunk the belief that someone took the image near Seattle and had Photoshopped it. Microsoft did enhance the green and crop the image, but it was not a digital creation.

In 1998, they replanted the hill, and nearly a decade later, Goldin+Senneby took a photograph showing rows of grapevines under a gray, cloudy sky. The artists found it fascinating that people still remembered 'Bliss', a symbol of the time before the era of algorithmic mass-customization on the social web.

Even two years after Microsoft discontinued XP, it still ran on seven percent of computers worldwide. Every spot from the White House situation room to a North Korean power plant spotted O’Rear’s image. He believes that people will remember his photograph forever because they universally recognize it.

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