Man who took 'most viewed photo ever' explains how he did it
Topics: World News, Social Media, Viral, Microsoft, Technology
Poppy Bilderbeck
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/ Shoot The Rabbit/ Bart Leferink/ Marcel Buunk
Topics: World News, Social Media, Viral, Microsoft, Technology
The photographer behind the world's 'most viewed photo ever' has opened up about the circumstances around when he snapped it.
If someone asked you what the 'most viewed photo ever' is, what would you say?
It's not a trick question, there's just one image that you've probably grown so used to seeing in the background, you're probably a bit immune to noticing it.
Advert
You'd think the world's 'most viewed photo ever' would've involved a very expensive camera, finding the perfect location, waiting for the perfect lighting and a while getting the angle right, but photographer Charles [Chuck] O'Rear, says he was simply in the right place at the right time.
In an interview with PEOPLE in 2021, the 81-year-old explained he 'always' carries a camera around with him because 'you just never know'.
O'Rear took what is considered to be the world's 'most viewed photo' in January 1996 when on his way to visit his now-wife of over 20 years, Daphne Larkin.
He was driving from his house in St Helena, California to hers in Marin County, noting he 'used to pull over often to take photos' because the scenery along the way was 'so beautiful'.
And the one image he took which has become iconic? Well, it's called 'Bliss'.
The real question is, where will you recognise it from?
If you weren't brought up solely on MacBooks, you'll recognise it as being the background image of your Microsoft computer screen.
Luscious, green gentle hills flowing into one another accompanied by a rolling blue sky spotted with perfect, fluffy, white clouds - the picturesque image made opening up the computer to do touch-typing lessons worth it.
But surely the image of a Wizard of Oz-like beautiful world must have been photoshopped? Such heaven can't really exist?
Well, it wasn't.
"When it's on film, what you see is what you get," O'Rear explains - the photographer taking the image using a Mamiya RZ67 camera with colour Fuji Film and a tripod.
"There was nothing unusual. I used a film that had more brilliant colours, the Fuji Film at that time, and the lenses of the RZ67 were just remarkable.
"The size of the camera and film together made the difference and I think helped the Bliss photograph stand out even more.
"I think if I had shot it with 35 millimetre, it would not have nearly the same effect," O'Rear says in a video for Microsoft, shot by cameraman Bar Leferink and directed by Marcel Buunk under company Shoot the Rabbit.
O'Rears' image ended up in the lap of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, after Gates' Corbis group bought Westlight stock photo agency in 1998 - with Westlight being the agency the photographer originally submitted 'Bliss' to.
'Bliss' was bought by Microsoft for a 'low six-figure' sum of over $100,000 - the exact amount unknown - and it became the Windows XP desktop image we all know, love and have nonchalantly stared at wishing we could transport to where the image was taken.
However, the transaction didn't go as smoothly as planned. O'Rear paid such a high sum for the image that Fed Ex 'wouldn't touch it' because of how hefty the insurance would be.
This meant O'Rear had to hop on a plane and hand deliver the original photograph to Microsoft's Seattle office himself, as per St Helena Star, although it was worth it for a six-figure sum and free plane ride.
While the image was 'just another picture for Chuck', it's become the photographer's most famous.
"Twenty-five years at Geographic and nobody ever gives a damn about that," wife Larkin jokes.
O'Rear explains: "I get emails maybe every week or two, something related to the 'Bliss' photograph.
"When I die, although I won't be buried, Daphne has said, on your tombstone, we're not going to say National Geographic, we're going to say 'Photographer of Bliss'."
'Bliss' is ultimately the image that has followed the photographer to this day - no matter where he's travelled around the world he can't escape it.
"The image is everywhere as we all know. [...] The picture, no matter where we've been in the world - India, Thailand, Greece - that picture is always there, either on some old computer in an upscale hotel that hasn't been updated in 30 years in the lobby the people are checking you in on, or, we saw that picture in billboards, airplanes, at airports," O'Rear reflects.
"We were walking through the Chicago airport years ago and there it was."
He resolves: "I have a theory that anybody now from aged 15 on for the rest of their life will remember this photograph.
"So now I'm in secondary school, I'm 15 years old, I was on my computer in school and I go onto college and I go on into the work world and now I'm 50 years old, 70 years old and I see that image somewhere.
"I won't remember where I saw it, but I will remember it."