Bliss is the name of a BMP image produced from a photograph of a landscape in Napa County, California, east of Sonoma Valley. It is so named because it contains rolling green hills and a blue sky with stratocumulus and cirrus clouds. The image is used as the default computer wallpaper for the "Luna" theme, which is included with Microsoft Windows XP.
The photograph was taken by the professional photographer Charles O'Rear, a resident of St. Helena, Napa County, for digital-design company HighTurn. O'Rear has also taken photographs for Bill Gates' private Seattle stock photography company Corbis and Napa Valley photographs for the May 1979 National Geographic Magazine article Napa, Valley of the Vine.
O'Rear's photograph inspired Windows XP's US$ 200 million advertising campaign Yes you can., by the San Francisco division of New York City advertising company McCann-Erickson. The campaign was launched on TV on ABC during one of ABC Sports's Monday Night Football . The TV commercials included Madonna's Ray of Light song, whose TV rights cost Microsoft about $14 million.
In February 2007, in the collective exhibition Accrochage Vaud 2007 at Espace Arlaud in Lausanne, Sébastien Mettraux, a Swiss artist showed a photograph titled "Colline verdoyante", d'après Bill Gates, 2006, translated as "Bliss, after Bill Gates, 2006". blank">http://www.sebastien-mettraux.ch/english1.html
Mettraux, who lives and works near the Valley de Joux, explained that it was taken in Les Esserts-de-Rives, Switzerland.
A local rumour says that _Bill Gates went to this region in order to visit a famous Swiss watch manufacturer, and that he took the photograph called "bliss" himself in this place.
The image is also available as one of the many image options on Capital One credit cards , and has been subject to many parodies.
