Canon 400D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-f/4.5 USM lens - 1/60 second, f/4, ISO 100

This is what was behind the camera... As the chalet is hanging on the mountainside there is a huge vertical drop just outside these windows. The view is spectacular and not for people that get vertigo. You can see the whole of Meribel and you feel like you are sitting in a bird's nest.

Photography wise this is the shot I'm least happy with because it doesn't have the same level of colour saturation as the others (I tried but it ended up looking fake). Also, in this series I used quite a severe vignette to focus attention on the centre of frame which gives them a bit of a 70's feel (especially with the decor).

This is the set complete. I hope you like them. There are a couple more in my Meribel 2008 set which I won't blog about. Next time I'll post some architectural shots taken whilst photowalking around Bournemouth.

Canon 400D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-f/4.5 USM lens - 1/6 second, f/4, ISO 100

As I mentioned yesterday, the chalet we stayed in was rather unique - built hanging on to the mountainside. The entrance is at the top of the building (behind the chimney in the picture). The precarious landing and steps are not child friendly either. The living space is at the level you see here with rooms on the floors below. The fireplace dominates the room and, as the steps to the right of it indicate, has a sunken seating area in front. The really spectacular feature is behind the camera - tomorrows shot.

I've done a fair bit of processing with all these pictures as the light was truly awful for photography - dull and grey. The chalet itself was quite dark under these conditions and any shot with a window in instantly blows out the highlights. All the internal chalet shots are a blend of multiple exposures taken from a single RAW file.

Canon 400D, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L lens - 1/4 second, f/22, ISO 100

It's been a couple of weeks since we got back from skiing but things have been hectic with the wedding planning so I haven't had much time to process the pictures. I didn't take many because a bulky SLR is not the best thing to carry if you might take a tumble on the slopes. There are more in Claire's photostream.

This one was taken from our chalet. You will see from the next few in the series that it was rather unique and had some specatcular views.

This picture was taken last week overlooking Courcheval 1850. I spent a week with friends in a fantastic chalet run by Ski Power. My skiing is improving but unfortunately Claire fell on her first run of the week. She broke her arm which meant she was out of action for the whole week. Kudos to Norwich Union for sorting everything without fuss, paying the blood wagon directly and even getting an extra seat on the plane next to Claire.

We had to go quite high for decent snow because down in the towns it was distinctly spring like and at times more like water skiing than snow skiing.

As usual I've got a few more pictures which you can find on Flickr. If your a friend or family then there are some additional ones to see as well.