ČTENÍ A JAZYKOVÁ KOMPETENCE - 7. ČÁST - ÚLOHY 40–44
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Přečtěte si článek o slavné foto grafii. Na základě informací v textu vyberte k úlohám 40–44 
vždy jednu správnou odpověď A–D.

**The Story Beh ind a Famous Photograph**
Professional photographer Charles O’Rear often drove through Sonoma 
County, California to visit his girlfriend. He loved the region’s hills so he 
waited for the right moment to take a picture of them. Then, one Friday in 
1996, the right moment finally came. So, Charles O’Rear stopped his car 
and took the now-famous photo. He thought about eventually sending it 
to National Geographic, as they had bought some of his previous photos. 
So had the Los Angeles Times, whose editors would surely be interested in more photos of 
the California countryside. In the end, he decided to upload it to a photo licensing website. Then 
in 2000, Microsoft was looking for a photo that would make a default desktop background[^1] for 
its newest operating system. Microsoft found O’Rear’s photo on the photo licensing website and 
bought it from him.

O’Rear was never told exactly why his photo was selected and he was only left to guess. ‘I believe 
they wanted a photo of a nice summer countryside because their new operating system was going 
to be introduced in August. If that was the case, they couldn’t be more wrong,’ says O’Rear. He admits 
that he had been waiting for the right moment to take the photo since October of the previous year. 
It was only a week after New Year’s Eve when he finally took it that Friday. However, he didn’t upload 
the photo to the website right then in January. He found time to do so two months later, in March. 
‘Every time I tell people when I took the photo, they’re surprised,’ laughs O’Rear.

When people see the photo, many of them recognize it. But they hardly know what the author 
of the photo looks like. And those who do are often curious. They want to know: Did Charles 
make the grass and the sky look brighter on his computer? They can’t believe he didn’t. It 
was the Microsoft team, they changed the colours in the end. Charles was not angry about it. 
But Charles was disappointed with Microsoft about something else. It did not publish much 
information about the place in Charles’ photo. Charles says, ‘Some people think that it is a photo 
of New Zealand. I wish more people knew it is California.’ The one thing that Microsoft and 
Charles agreed on was never to publish the price. Charles can only say that it was the most he 
has ever been paid for a photo. When people ask him, he jokes that he got $1,000,000 for it. But 
nobody ever believed that he had got so much.

One more thing is also not well known: the Microsoft team gave the photo a name – it’s called 
‘__Bliss__’. It was because the word bliss described what they felt every time they looked at it. 
Sometimes they dreamt they were in the photo, listening only to the wind blowing and to birds 
singing loudly. The Microsoft team would look at the photo on their PC screens for a few minutes 
ev ery day. It was the only chance during their busy day to just sit and relax. The bright green 
grass, the sky, no traffic and no people – nothing could make them any happier. Charles O’Rear 
says, ‘That’s why I think the name matches my photo perfectly. That’s what I often felt while 
driving there.’ Although Microsoft stopped supporting that version of the operating system a few 
years ago, ‘Bliss’ will never be forgotten.

People have tried to find that piece of land and take a photo of it too. When they come to 
the place, they are surprised that it looks different now. That is because they expect to see a golf 
course or something similar. Some people go and knock on the doors of the new houses near 
the place from the photo. They go to those houses to ask about the rows of grapes. That’s what 
they see on the piece of land instead of the grass. The truth is that the grass was only there 
for a few years in the long history of this traditional winemaking region. If it was a region with 
a history of animal farming, there would be an animal farm there now. 

(*www.artsy.net, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/bliss_(image*)*; upraveno)*

[^1]: a default desktop background: výchozí pozadí plochy počítače


# 40 Which company asked Charles O’Rear to take the now-famous photograph?
- [A] none
- [B] Microsoft
- [C] National Geographic
- [D] The Los Angeles Times
