Windows wallpapers are seen every day in homes and offices around the world. The rolling green hills and blue sky of Windows XP’s Bliss, captured by photographer Charles O’Rear, became so iconic that Microsoft even put it on sweaters. Then we had the mysterious Windows 10 wallpaper, which looked like computer-generated imagery but was actually a photograph of a real window with lasers, a mirror and smoke machines.
Windows 11 marked a departure, with Microsoft opting not for photography but for a piece of digital art: Bloom, created by Barcelona-based Six N Five. But the tech giant decided to seek its next great Windows wallpaper photograph to provide an alternative. And it invited seven photographers from different countries to compete to create it – and to document the process.
