Friday, April 25, 2014

Figgers - it's in Sonoma.



It's estimated a billion people from heads of state to scientists to poor shopkeepers in Third World countries have gazed into that storybook spot, so simple and vibrant in its imagery that many assume it exists only on a digital file at Microsoft.
The default wallpaper for Windows XP, “Bliss,” as it has been dubbed by Microsoft, is a real photograph of a real place.
The photo was taken in Sonoma County, just west of the old Stornetta's Dairy along a treacherous stretch of Highway 121 south of Sonoma. And it was snapped by Charles O'Rear, a former National Geographic photographer who was trolling for green hillsides on a January day in 1998 and struck gold with one lucky shot.
“Bliss” is widely regarded as the most viewed picture in the world — up there with such iconic photos as the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima — considering how many computers worldwide ran on Windows XP and how long the operating system has hung around in common use.

Any real photographer would disown that image due to the shameless oversaturation of the colors.  Just  as lurid and saccharin as it can be.


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