First time shoot in snow - advice please

I am shooting at a French Alp Ski resort in January for a holiday company and am seeking advice about the practicalities of working in the cold and snow?

I'm not skiing myself (never have), I'm just there to photograph holiday guests and the resort's facilities.

I have questions about clothes and in particular whether there are any issues with handling cameras in the cold (ie taking gloves off to operate the camera controls, freezing fingers, etc.)

Also any general advice for a newbie to working in this environment.

Thanks

Keep batteries and water close to your body to keep them warm. Batteries tend to drain fast in cold temperature and when not needed, put them in some inside pocket of your jacket.
Drink water! Dehydration in cold weather is as bad as in hot weather.
In winter the temperature is around -15C to -20C and might drop down to -30C, I wear multiple layers of clothes to keep me warm. Sometimes I have two pairs of gloves with me, one pair thats thin and can use to operate the camera and other pair is just a pair of thick mittens I can put on the thin ones. Two pairs of gloves keeps my fingers nice and warm.
If you need to change lenses, do it over a bag. With freezing fingers things might slip and fall, it's better for a lens to fall into a bag rather than snow. Best option is just not to change lenses.
Before you go from outside to inside (cold to warm) put your gear in the bag because condensation will form on the camera and lenses. Let them warm in the bag for some time, it's a way to prevent condensation from killing your camera. It works the other way also, going from warm to cold can be deadly for your camera, but the cure is the same.
And last but not least, try not to grab metal/aluminum(tripods​) bare handed

Brilliantly helpful - thank you my friend

yeah good advice. you'll find that a thin pair of gloves might be fine for just being outside, but when you hold the aluminium camera body, it sucks the heat out of the hand. had this happen to me lots in northern europe duing my first time up there! But in terms of the camera, getting the camera slowly acustomised to each change in temperature is important. when your camera does fog up (it will happen, just be patient

Multiple glove layers in those temps is a very good idea. I usually use 3:

1. very thin cotton or similar that I can operate almost anything with
2. regular gloves that (with practice) I can handle most camera functions. These are relatively thin compared to ski gloves or the like and I have wind resistant ones - gore stopper they are called.
3. gore-tex mittens - mittens being warmer and keeps the snow out, but obviously I can't do much with them on and the 3 other layers.

This way I can control to some extent the unnecessary exposure my hands get.

I'm usually working on a tripod though, so that may make a difference to what you want to do.

I would go for thin merino gloves as a base layer for the hands rather than cotton. If it is very cold do not take them off even for a short time.

Understand wind chill, it makes a big difference to the temperature when in exposed places.

Try to use a layering system that allows you to add or take off layers one at a time. Do not get into the situation where you have to take something heavy off that is keeping you warm in order to put warmer layers on, you will just loose heat.