When Life is better than Photoshop

We've seen the image- I'm sure we all have.  I'll admit wondering about it a few times.

The story of it's origin is circulating at the moment, coincident with the formal demise of Microsoft's XP operating system.  This was our home screen, the one we all got by default.

In looking at it, I had - perhaps cynically- always imagined that the image, with it's oh-so-perfect light and vibrant grass and sky, I'd always thought it must have been enhanced, and manipulated as I'd rarely if ever seen something as remarkable with my own eyes. I also wondered if it actually existed at all, or rather was a dreamscape put together by an engineer somewhere.

But, and this is the renewing part I think, Charles O'Rear took the picture himself, and it wasn't made artificial in any way. That's the way it was, one fine day in 1996 north of San Francisco, at some stunning moment that his experienced eye and great skills were able to capture.  Lucky us.

Bliss indeed.