1996, National Geographic photographer Charles “Chuck” O’Rear was driving from Sonoma County through Napa on his way to Marin County. He pulled over on Highway 12 and took the photo — now known as “Bliss” — of green hills and puffy clouds.
The photo ended up at Corbis, a photo agency then owned by Bill Gates. When Microsoft was looking for a wallpaper image for Windows XP, they found Bliss, and bought it.
O’Rear says:
“I got an email from someone at Microsoft—I suspect it was the engineering department—saying, ‘We have a contest going about that photograph,’” O’Rear said. “‘Most of us think it was Photoshopped. Some of us think it was taken out in eastern Washington in the Palouse area. Tell us about it.’ I wrote back and said, ‘Sorry, it’s the real deal. It was all there. The clouds were there, the green grass was there and the blue sky.”
If you search Google Maps for the co-ordinates 38.248966, -122.410269 then you will find other photos taken from the same spot.
The original 1996 grassland has been turned into a vineyard.