Charles O'Rear

Charles O'Rear (born November 26, 1941) is an American photographer and author, known for photographing Bliss, the default wallpaper of Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, and for being a National Geographic photographer from 1971 to 1995.

O'Rear was born in Butler, Missouri, and developed an interest in photography at a young age. He started his career at the Butler Daily Democrat and later worked as a photographer for the Emporia Gazette, The Kansas City Star, and Los Angeles Times newspapers. He then worked as a freelancer for The New York Times and Western Airlines. O'Rear participated in the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica project in the 1970s, where he is credited with the most photographs. He was hired by National Geographic in 1971, covering Old Believers, Napa Valley, and various international stories. He worked for the magazine until 1995 and is the only photographer to have appeared on its cover.

Following his Napa Valley assignment in 1978, O'Rear developed an interest in wine photography; relocated to St. Helena, California; and formed the Los Angeles-based stock photo agency Westlight in 1980. In January 1996, he captured a stock photo of a green rolling hill and cirrus clouds during a daytime sky in southern Sonoma County. After the acquisition of Westlight by Bill Gates's Corbis, O'Rear was approached by Microsoft, who offered to buy full rights to the photograph; they renamed it Bliss and chose it as the default wallpaper of Windows XP. Journalists have speculated it to be the most-viewed photograph in history. O'Rear continued to cover Napa Valley by authoring coffee table books and books about wines and vineyards with his wife, Daphne Larkin. The couple moved to Brevard, North Carolina, in 2017, and by 2020, O'Rear had retired.

Early life Charles O'Rear was born on November 26, 1941, in Butler, Missouri. His mother, a Humansville native, was a journalist, home economist, and social worker. During his elementary education, O'Rear participated in a shuffleboard competition in 1952 and authored his first newspaper article for the Bates County Democrat in 1955. He also worked as a sports reporter on behalf of Butler High School. He graduated from the school in 1959 and attended the Emporia State University, then known as Kansas State Teachers College, Most of his photographs were shot in black-and-white with film cameras, O'Rear is a member of The Photo Society, a group of prominent magazine photographers. A year later, in 1962, O'Rear joined The Kansas City Star as a reporter-photographer. His role at the newspaper slowly changed to that of a photographer, as the editors were more satisfied with his photographs than with his writing. During his time as a freelancer, he was hired as a photographer by The New York Times and Western Airlines.

From 1972 to 1977, O'Rear was part of the Environmental Protection Agency's Documerica project, aimed at "photographically documenting the subjects of environmental concern in America during the 1970s" along with 70 other photographers, including Bill Strode, Danny Lyon, and John H. White. O'Rear is credited with the most photographs in the final Documerica collection. He took photographs of Honolulu, Hawaii, Nebraska, Las Vegas, Arizona, California, and Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. C. Jerry Simmons of Prologue saw O'Rear's work in Nebraska as "a lasting snapshot of Midwest America". He noted that O'Rear's Hitchhiker With His Dog photograph from May 1972 was considered one of the most popular photographs from the Documerica project. Regarding his nature photographs, O'Rear showed the destruction of the environment "as a threat to the social future of the United States," according to historian Caleb Wellum.

National Geographic The National Geographic magazine hired O'Rear in 1971 to document the lives of Old Believers, a group of Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians who live in Alaska. The magazine then tasked him with an assignment in Acapulco, Mexico, instead. He traveled to Indonesia in 1985 on another assignment, during which he used 500 rolls of film and took over 15,000 photographs. having appeared twice; on the cover of "The Chip: Electronic Mini Marvel That is Changing Your Life" in 1982, regarding microchip production in the Silicon Valley, and "The Bird Men," appearing as an aircraft pilot, in 1983. The photograph for "The Bird Men" was taken in North Dakota; he hoped that he would capture a pelican flying to their roost but was unsuccessful. He also recalled that he earned more than from his photographs after the 1982 story. Westlight offered photographs that could have been bought or rented. The photograph was taken in January 1996. He recalled that he was looking for an opportunity to shoot a photograph that day, considering that a storm had passed over and winter rains had left the hill green. He drove along the Sonoma Highway, California State Route 121 intersecting 12, and came to a stop in southern Sonoma County. O'Rear used a Mamiya RZ67 medium-format camera and Fujifilm's Velvia color film to take the photograph. Despite being widely believed that the photograph was manipulated or created with software such as Adobe Photoshop, O'Rear said that he did not digitally enhance or manipulate the photograph in any way. The photograph was initially titled Bucolic Green Hills. By the time of its acquisition, Westlight was estimated to have been one of the largest stock photo agencies in the United States. Corbis had previously hired O'Rear to photograph wine auctions in Burgundy in 1995, and after the acquisition, they digitized Westlight's images. Microsoft renamed the photograph to Bliss and chose it as the default wallpaper of Windows XP.

Bliss received a positive reception after the release of Windows XP. Hannah Rooke of Digital Camera World said that the photograph became a metaphor for peace, nostalgia, and natural charm, Because of Windows XP's success, journalists and Microsoft have speculated whether Bliss is the most-viewed photograph in history. O'Rear estimated that the photograph was seen on a billion computers worldwide. Microsoft used Bliss in several promotions after the release of Windows XP, notably adding a modified version of the photograph as a Microsoft Teams background in 2021 and featuring it on a limited-edition holiday sweater in November 2023.

After Bliss O'Rear continued to work on covering Napa Valley after Bliss, publishing several coffee table books and books about different types of wines, as well as a book about Beringer Vineyards. By 2020, O'Rear had retired. In September 2023, The Transylvania Times named O'Rear the "Transylvanian of the Week" in recognition of his career accomplishments. He has been married three times and has one child with his first wife, Mary Wright. He had another child with Wright in 1961 who died shortly after birth.