A freelance NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC photographer named CHARLES O'REAR 
was driving through FREEMONT DRIVE on his way to visit his girlfriend when all of a sudden, He stopped dead on the road, looked across his Car Window, and noticed a green hill with Cirrus Clouds on the horizon.
It was the exact shot he thought of for the longest time.... at least that's what he thought.
So he got out of his car with his Camera, took some Photos, and then drove off into the distance.
Little did he know that on that JANUARY 1996, he took one of the most important photos that would be viewed by many a late Millennial & early Gen-Zer on their CRT or LCD Computer Monitors or Laptop screens.
That photo you see above this paragraph is BLISS, or BUCOLIC GREEN HILLS.
This is a photo taken by CHARLES O'REAR on his MAMIYA RZ67 professional camera fitted with FUJIFILM's VELVIA Filmstock.
The VELVIA Filmstock was known for punching up the saturation of the colors a tad bit when compared to most CONSUMER filmstock from KODAK or FUJIFILM.
This photo was later made a part of DIGITAL STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY as he put it through his company called WESTLIGHT.
On May 1998, a SEATTLE-based company called CORBIS bought WESTLIGHT.
At first, not much happened after that acquisition until sometime around 2000, Microsoft contacted O'REAR to inquire about the photograph he took in 1996.
O'REAR was asked about an asking price for the photo to outright BUY the photo.
O'REAR sold his BLISS photo for a large sum of around US$10,000.
Why did MICROSOFT buy the photo?
MARKETTING!!!.
That's what.
The photo was just what MICROSOFT needed to market their then new Operating System WINDOWS XP which was coming around the corner and hyped to high heaven as a newly built, based on the NT kernel OS.
It also changed the look more modern to fit with the move into the
TURN OF THE MILLENIUM
with the introduction of the LUNA interface.
But that photo of that hill, 
That intrigued a lot of people, especially in the STATE OF CALIFORNIA because some people were almost at it's vicinity so they want to see it themselves....
But then they look at the actual area once they get there and this is what they see now:
That was the reaction from many a WINDOWS nerd for many years.
"WTF is this?
This ain't a beautiful green hill!
IT'S A F**KING VINEYARD!!!
I WANT MY GREEN HILL!!!!"
That was the reaction from many a WINDOWS nerd for many years.
(I sometimes still see memes on Facebook of people voicing their disbelief on how the hill looks now)
But it's the same hill.
And yes, It's a Vineyard because it's actually a part of NAPA VALLEY
Yes. That part of CALIFORNIA where the best AMERICAN-PRODUCED wine is made and distilled.
The vines are also where the grapes are grown to make the wine.
However, during the mid-1990s,
There was a PHYLLOXERA INFESTATION that devoured the grapevines, forcing the growers to rip out about 50,000 something acres of INFESTED vineyards.
In the gap where the vines used to be, the grass started to grow.
So the irony was that THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN HILLSIDE PHOTO was in fact a crime scene photo of an agricultural disaster who's greenness was caused by rainfall and the saturation level of the color filmstock CHARLES O'REAR used.
O'REAR had for many years been looking for the perfect photo of NAPA VALLEY he wanted to take ever since he successfully convinced NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC to drop their NO ALCOHOL rule for articles and photos but those photos he took for NG were for them.
This one on the other hand was meant to be a personal photo to O'REAR until he sold the photo to MICROSOFT but even before that, he knew that at that moment in January '96, the perfect photo opportunity was NOW OR NEVER due to the perfect weather conditions.
Getting the photo to MICROSOFT was however much more difficult when compared to selling the complete rights to the photo.
O'REAR had to FLY in-person to deliver the photo negatives himself rather than have FEDEX ruin the photos with their rough handling.
And O'REAR has stated many times in the past that the photo is UNEDITED. PEROID!!!
But some refute that even to this day due to how green the photo is
The unnatural GREEN-ness of the VINEYARDS was due to the VELVIA film O'REAR used and probably the photo scanners that MICROSOFT used.....
Also, the photo is slightly cropped at the left to remove another blue hill at the distance as a way to provide more SCREEN DIRECTION to the hilltops.
But we can say that no tools like PHOTOSHOP or GIMP were used to edit so maybe that's where O'REAR's UNEDITED remarks come from.
But whatever.
This photo permeated the screens of those who owned WINDOWS XP computers for many years,
Including yours truly, ME:
DAN ARTURO MARTINEZ.
A Genuine MDG HORIZON 2900TV
Not my PC pictured here.
My MDG had more SILVERY ACCENTS
and only had a CD-RW Drive and Floppy Drive....
Plus USB Ports.
To be honest though, I never once in my life used BLISS to it's fullest as we stuck with whatever photos were used in the HARD DRIVE that PC had.
And most often we use Downloaded images or Photos we take on our Cameras to use as our wallpaper anyway so that's saying much.
Once again,
I beat DAVE FARQUHAR of THE SILICON UNDERGROUND on talking about CHARLES O'REAR's Napa Valley photograph.
But not all of my info is complete.
If you really want to know more about the photo and how it really became that iconic to everyday WINDOWS users of the 2000s, I recommend this Excellent Video from MICHAEL MJD where he talks of the significance of the photograph
As well a surprise he did for us people of WEB3.
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