Have you seen the "most viewed photo ever"? Former Nat Geo photographer’s unlikely magnum opus turns 30 years old

If you’re older than about 24, then you probably won’t be surprised to learn that the image above is often hailed as the most viewed photograph in the world.

That’s right, the minimalist image – taken by former National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear’s – is likely to slap anyone born around the millennium with a backhand of nostalgia so great, that pulling a shiny Charizard, watching an episode of Daria or listening to Black Hole Sun couldn’t compare.

And in the month of January 2026, the image we’ve come to know as Bliss (originally Bucolic Green Hills) has reached its 30th birthday. The iconic shot served as the Microsoft XP operating system’s default wallpaper from 2001 to 2007, and is estimated to have been seen by a billion people (or billions, depending on who you ask).

As such, it’s often regarded as the most viewed photograph of all time. It’s certainly up there with the Apollo 11 images, the shot of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate, and V-J Day in Times Square.

But where most of the world’s most famous photos are about capturing a historic moment in time, Bliss bucks the trend in that it’s a minimalist image of a rather unremarkable landscape.

And yet, I think it’s precisely this simplicity that is part of the image’s enduring charm. It was captured in California’s Sonoma County and yet, devoid of context, it could feasibly be any green hill across the globe. As such, it’s instantly relatable – and it boasts near-technical perfection, too.

It fits neatly within the rule of thirds, while the soft patches of light and shadow accentuate the curvature of the rolling hills, and the bright-white cirrus clouds pop against the deep-blue sky.

Bliss is so perfect that you’d be forgiven for thinking it heavily edited or even a render. But what is perhaps most surprising is that it’s an analog image, captured using a Mamiya RZ67 medium format camera and a roll of Fujifilm Velvia. Some have questioned whether Bliss was edited, but O’Rear and indeed UCR Arts maintain otherwise.

It was also an impromptu capture. O’Rear took the photograph en route to visit his girlfriend. And while Bliss is more iconic, he also photographed another Windows XP wallpaper called Red Moon Desert – which I personally think is an even better image!

According to Windows Wallpaper Wiki, the image was initially available through O’Rear’s co-owned stock-image library Westlight, with Bill Gates’ Corbis purchasing Westlight in 1998. In 2000, Microsoft bought the full rights to ‘Bliss’ for an undisclosed six-figure sum.

Today, the location has been replanted as vineyards, but we’ll always have the rolling green hills and vibrant blue sky immortalized by Charles O’Rear. Arguably, the most viewed photograph of all time.

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