{"id":4003,"date":"2025-04-07T08:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T08:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/4003\/"},"modified":"2025-04-07T08:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T08:15:11","slug":"man-who-took-most-viewed-photo-ever-had-one-regret-about-it-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/4003\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who took ‘most viewed photo ever’ had one regret about it – World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

While its origin may have an incredible backstory, the man who took the ‘most viewed photo ever’ only ever had one regret about the whole ordeal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While out on our travels<\/a>, many of us have likely took a picture of some scenery or beautiful landscapes to show our family and friends. <\/p>\n

However, for photographer Chuck O’Rear, his decision to snap some impressive scenery led to him becoming incredibly prolific – whether you realised it or not. <\/p>\n

O’Rear took what is considered to be the world’s ‘most viewed photo’<\/a> in January 1996, when on his way to visit his now-wife of over 20 years, Daphne Larkin.<\/p>\n

He was driving from his house in St Helena, California<\/a> to Larkin’s in Marin County, noting he ‘used to pull over often to take photos’ because the scenery along the way was ‘so beautiful’.<\/p>\n

\"ChuckChuck O’Rear’s photograph is widely considered to be the world’s ‘most viewed photo ever’ (YouTube\/Shoot the Rabbit)<\/p>\n

This particular picture, named Bliss, showed a scenic view of green hills flowing into one another accompanied by a rolling blue sky and fluffy white clouds.<\/p>\n

O’Rears’ image ended up with Microsoft<\/a> co-founder Bill Gates<\/a>, who used it as a background for Window XP, after Gates’ Corbis group bought Westlight stock photo agency in 1998, which were the agency he’d initially submitted the photo to as a stock image. <\/p>\n

This is where O’Rear’s regret with the photo comes in.<\/p>\n

While the exact figure is unknown, ‘Bliss’ was bought by Microsoft for a ‘low six-figure sum<\/a>‘ of over $100,000, however, he wished that he’d been better at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

“If I had known how popular it would become and how many computers it would’ve been on I should’ve negotiated a [better] deal and said, ‘Just give me a fraction of a cent for every time it’s seen’ and that would’ve been a nice arrangement,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"'Bliss'‘Bliss’ by Chuck O’Rear Microsoft Windows XP<\/p>\n

“It was not a royalty type of situation. It was a flat ‘here’s what we’re paying you, thank you very much and let’s get it on the [computer] screen and get moving.'”<\/p>\n

There had long been speculation that ‘Bliss’ had been photoshopped – I mean, surely such a splendid picture received some filter treatment?<\/p>\n

Well, according to O’Rear, it’s all legit as he explained: “When it’s on film, what you see is what you get. 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.<\/p>\n

“The size of the camera and film together made the difference and I think helped the Bliss photograph stand out even more.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While its origin may have an incredible backstory, the man who took the ‘most viewed photo ever’ only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1626,507,2249,53,16,15,416],"class_list":{"0":"post-4003","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-bill-gates","9":"tag-microsoft","10":"tag-photography","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-viral"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114295690254736297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}