Windows Vista ships by default with some exquisite examples of digital photography. Microsoft's latest operating system offers a collection of no less than 36 Windows wallpapers. Among them, you can also access the picture included on the left. Maybe you even have it as your desktop background. The photo depicts an area of the Enchantment Lakes Basin, a glacier located in the eastern part of Washington's Cascade Range. Generally, Microsoft commissions the imagery used in the operating system from professional photographers. In this context, Windows Vista is an exception. Microsoft tapped alternative photography resources from Flickr.com to its own employees.

The Windows Vista wallpaper illustrated herein was authored by a Microsoft virtualization guru named Steve Fu, according to MicrosoftClick. Fu is a 39-year-old amateur photographer, which began focusing more seriously on his passion for photography approximately seven years ago. The result of his work would end up paying with the launch of Windows Vista in 2007, but Fu took the picture all the way back in 2003, while camping at the Enchantment Lakes Basin. And the fact of the matter is that the photography almost wouldn't have happened, if it hadn't been for a reservation cancellation that allowed Fu into the park.

The image included in Vista as a wallpaper was shot with a Nikon D100 mounted on a tripod, with a18-35 millimeter lens. The time was an incredible 5 a.m. And every pixel seemed to just fit into place. Fu submitted the image along with another 1,300 entries in January 2006, as Microsoft began building the wallpaper collection for Windows Vista. He got a cool $1,000, but Fu couldn't care less about the money. "People keep asking me, 'Did Microsoft pay you money?' And I say, 'Are you nuts? I'd do it for free. It's like I'm immortal. My photo is immortal for the next decade,'" he revealed. In case you want to feast your eyes on more of Fu's work then just visit his website.

In early March 2008, I managed to get in touch with Hamad Darwish, a self described "24 years old Kuwait Radiographer / Network Administrator - photography hobbyist, and an adventure enthusiast." His amateur photography is also featured among the wallpapers of the Windows Vista operating system. However, you can also download the High Resolution Windows Vista Desktop Wallpaper Pack Hamad put together from here.