This is probably the most widely seen photograph in the world, taken by photographer Charles Oriel in 1996.
It was a Friday afternoon when Charles Oriel set out from his home in San Francisco's Napa Valley to visit his girlfriend, Daphne Owen, in the city. He was working with Daphne on a book about wine country (Napa Valley is a famous wine region). It had just rained that day, and the sky was blue. While driving, he saw the scenery - it was originally a vineyard, but due to the aphid disaster, the vineyard was temporarily demolished.
Oriel had a flash of inspiration and understood that this beautiful view was a great opportunity for photography.
"There it was!" Oriel later recalled: "My God, the grass was perfect green! The sun was out and there were some clouds."
He immediately found a place to park, took out his Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera, tripod and Fujifilm Vivian film, and took 4 photos of the scenery in front of him.
"Everything changed so quickly at that time, clouds, light... I had to hurry up and take pictures." Oriel said that this picture has not undergone any PS or other processing methods. It is a miracle created by film and camera.
Since the photo was not suitable for use in the "Wine Country" book, Oriel uploaded the photo to the Corbis Photo Library, where anyone who wants to use the photo can purchase the rights through the photo library. In 2000, the Windows XP development team of Microsoft contacted him through Corbis, because Corbis is also a Microsoft company. "I didn't know what they were looking for," Oriel recalled. "Are they looking for a peaceful photo? Are they looking for a relaxing photo?"
Microsoft told Oriel that they didn't just want the image to be the default wallpaper on XP systems; Buy all rights to it. To do so, they offered Oriel what he said was the second largest payment ever made to a photographer for a photo; however, he signed a nondisclosure agreement and could not reveal the exact amount. The amount was reportedly "minimum six figures". Oriel needed to send the original film to Microsoft and sign the authorization document, but when he went to send it by courier, the courier and courier company refused to send it - the value of the photo was too high, and if it was lost or damaged, he could not afford the insurance. So Microsoft bought a plane ticket for Oriel and asked him to deliver the photos in person.
Microsoft named the photo "Bliss" and made it a key part of its XP marketing campaign. The highly saturated image is a masterpiece of Vervia film, and it is estimated that this image has been seen on 1 billion computers around the world.
P1: The most familiar scene
P2: Photographer Oriel standing in the same place holding his work
P3: The same place in 2006 has turned into a vineyard
P4: The same place in 2017, the vineyard is lush
