Bliss

So have you ever had a photograph that's so valuable that FedEx and UPS won't accept it for shipping? Charles O'Rear did. He had to get on a plane and hand-deliver it.

A nice little video visit with the photographer of the famous Windows XP wallpaper shot. (How many other people are thinking "why don't I live in a place like that?")

Shot on Fuji Velvia with a Mamiya RZ67.

Mike
(Thanks to Hans Muus)

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TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Eamon Hickey: "In somebody's vacation house somewhere in the late 1980s, I came across an old National Geographic issue from the 1970s, if memory serves, with a story called 'The Middle Kingdom' about California's Central Coast. I remember being knocked out by the stunning photography for that story, by a guy called Charles O'Rear. My understanding is that he shot quite a few stories for the Geographic over about 20 years or so. He was no lucky amateur when he shot 'Bliss.'

"I kept my eye out for his work, which I'd see fairly regularly in various magazines; he did a lot of superb editorial work around the West Coast of the U.S. for many, many years. I have great admiration for craftsman/artists like him—creating distinctive and artful work within the constraints of commercial/editorial assignments.

"I started my life in the camera business at the largest pro camera store (now long gone) in the Sonoma/Napa area where O'Rear lives. I never met him, but several other pros who regularly came into the store knew him and had only good things to say.

"'Tis indeed one of the world's charmed places. Many of those pros I knew made their living shooting for the wine industry—vineyards, wineries, wine bottles etc. Scenes like 'Bliss' are everywhere."

Dave: "I'm fortunate to live in the Bay Area, about 25 minutes from where the famous Windows photo was taken. After living most my life in the upper Midwest I don't take a moment of California living for granted. In early winter the hills turn green and the landscape looks other-worldly. By mid-May, the California sun turns the seasonal grass to toast. It's still beautiful out here during the summer but not magical like the spring. The best time to take photos is when the winter storms clear. The air in California is inherently dry and the rainy weather evaporates in spectacular fashion. One morning last week it was a raining and I was home taking care of our toddler. Sensing that the weather was about to break I took my boy up to the hills on the edge of our neighborhood. Soon enough the sun popped out and I got this photo."

Comments

[toto]

I've had a photograph that stank so badly that UPS and FedEx refused to deliver it. Even the airlines wouldn't let me get on their planes. But I managed to get it past the TSA. :)

[Paul De Zan]

Perfect timing. I get the strong impression that despite yesterday's XPocalypse, Windows XP and Chuck's fine photograph will outlive all of us.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Indisputably one of the great stories in photography's history, notwithstanding the fact that it will be largely unknown and ignored by the custodians of photography's culture history.

Personal note: I may be one of the minority of people who have rarely seen this image. My exit from the daily office world coincided roughly with the introduction of Windows XP. I have been exclusively on the Apple Mac platform since then.

[odaiwai]

Here's a question for all us photographers: would you have someone else's photo as your desktop background?

I always feel that I should have one of my own pics up there: I make pictures, so to use someone else's pic is kind of cheating.

I use this one most of the time: (https://www.flickr.com/photos/78667200@N00/5722338617/in/set-72157626726143660) which I took from a well known photo place in Hong Kong which requires a bit of scrambling and rock climbing to get to. Although it's more challenging to get down, as you tend to stay for the sunset and have to make your way down in the dark. Bring a flashlight! And maybe a stick to defend against the snakes.

I make an exception for NASA APOD pictures (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140406.html) - no matter how hard I try, I can't schlep my tripod to where they can go.

[Phil Maus]

Ha ha! I always thought that image was a digital composite or something.

Film. Go figure....

[Stephen Gilbert]

Fuji Velvia?

How many megapixels is that?

[Carl Blesch]

I always assumed that shot was taken in the Palouse, a part of southeastern Washington state that I've never been to but I've "seen" on Michael Reichmann's Luminous Landscape site. That green rolling hill in the Windows XP wallpaper looks just like the hills in Michael's photos. As Charles O'Rear said in his video, many people thought it was shot near Microsoft's HQ. Count me as one. I think it's safe to call the Palouse near, being in the same state (even if in the opposite corner).

[Bernard Scharp]

This is what the location looked like 10 years later...

[Kevin Purcell]

Bliss is at 38.248966, -122.410269 in Sonoma County, CA if you want to visit.

And it doesn't look like that any more, as they show in the video. It's now a vineyard.

http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2011/08/28/ever-wonder-where-the-windows-xp-default-wallpaper-came-from/

I had a small hand in sending XP off into the world even though I worked as a lead software developer in testing for Windows CE Tools at the time.

In the penultimate release candidate of XP it was discovered that if PlatMan was used XP would delete the contents of your document folder (FFS!). Platform Manager was used to manage the communication between the desktop and Window CE devices.

That was, even for Microsoft, an release candidate showstopper bug. I coordinated the QA side of the verification of the fix in CE Tools in the final release candidate of XP (as the bug was in XP ... not PlatMan!) then communicated with the XP QA folks for final verification. That was the last fix taken in the first release of XP.

I can't help but notice that the main image in the title sequence for Six Feet Under and the Bliss desktop picture in XP are very similar. That's at least one influence on the zeitgeist.

[RobinP]

I'd read about the origin of "Bliss" before but it was interesting to watch the video if only for the aural surprise of hearing the "ar zed 67" described as the "ar zee 67"! :-)

[Bruce]

Great behind-the-scenes tale. Thanks for sharing, Mike. Yes, that road looks extremely dangerous... Everyone's on the wrong side of the road!! Bruce, Australia.

[KeithB]

I have a desktop slideshow, but I have a few Ctein's in there. 8^)

[Simon Griffee]

My homage to Bliss from another wine country: http://simongriffee.com/notebook/tuscan-landscape

[Dave in NM]

Everybody's got a different idea of what bliss looks like…

http://www.deviantart.com/?q=xp+bliss&offset=0

[Ernie Van Veen]

He saw the photo... then stopped his car, got out and took the picture. How many times have I seen the photo while driving and not stopped? Too many! From now on I'm stopping (after carefully checking my rearview mirror).

[darr]

You know your getting to be a classic when you see a camera you have enjoyed for years make a splash into a time capsule.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I use other people's photos for wallpaper a lot more than my own; Ctein's Halley's Comet image, a nice photo of a PDP-8/L front panel I found (having neglected to take any nice ones myself when I was using them), a Mars rover panorama, other things I don't remember so much.

[Michael]

I love how at 6.32s the light on O'Rear changes and he instinctively looks up to see why.