“Bliss” itself was taken in 1996 by National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear, to whom Microsoft paid an estimated $100 ...

and Frauke Hameister shot a landscape in her native Germany. Each photographer documented how they found the location and ...

Microsoft purchased it in 2000. The picture known as "Bliss" soon became one of the most viewed photographs in the world when it was set as the default desktop background in Windows XP.