<P> Former National Geographic photographer Charles O'Rear , a resident of the nearby Napa Valley , took the photo on film with a medium - format Mamiya RZ67 camera while on his way to visit his girlfriend in 1996 . While it was widely believed later that the image was digitally manipulated or even created with software such as Adobe Photoshop , O'Rear says it never was . He sold it to Corbis for use as a stock photo . Several years later , Microsoft engineers chose a digitized version of the image and licensed it from O'Rear . </P>
<P> Former National Geographic photographer Charles O'Rear , a resident of the nearby Napa Valley , took the photo on film with a medium - format Mamiya RZ67 camera while on his way to visit his girlfriend in 1996 . While it was widely believed later that the image was digitally manipulated or even created with software such as Adobe Photoshop , O'Rear says it never was . He sold it to Corbis for use as a stock photo . Several years later , Microsoft engineers chose a digitized version of the image and licensed it from O'Rear . </P>
who took the picture of the windows xp background
who took the picture of the windows xp background
Charles O'Rear
Charles O'Rear