The Mysterious Origins of a Windows Desktop Image

Here’s a great read from Nick Tosches, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.

The wallpaper on Nick’s WinXP desktop was the classic ‘Autumn’ seen above, and it was a welcome scene when we returned home each time from his travels around the world including the hurried pace and fast lifestyle while away covering world events.

This story is about Nick’s absolute obsession for a year trying to track down the photographer and location of this photograph. The level of difficulty in finding information on the mysterious origins of the photo and the number of people involved in the effort makes for an interesting story. Here’s a snippet -

Every member of Team Autumn begins as I did, confident that finding the location pictured will be a quick and simple matter. As the months pass, many of my volunteers, rather than admit defeat, resort to the exculpatory “maybe it’s a computer-generated picture” premise and retreat to their real lives.

Some have tried to console me: “Hell, it’s probably next to a toxic-waste dump.” My buddy Bruce suggests there’s a sinister element: “It could be like Blow-Up. Something bad could be happening at the end of the path. Maybe that’s why they won’t tell you anything.”

But—toxic waste, dead bodies—I don’t care. Autumn awaits me. Somewhere. Yeah. Over the rainbow. Yeah. And I’ll find it yet.

Read on…

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