The Triple D Game Farm is owned by Jay and Kim Diest with much of the day to day operation overseen by Kathleen O’Neil. Either Jay or Kathleen, often both, will be with you while you are shooting and both have extensive filming experience. You are going to think they are know-nothing-animal-handlers but that would be a mistake. Both Kathleen and Jay have been helping photographers for many years and know what, where and how to get the shots you want better than you do. This applies to me as well. When one of them says, “I think it might be a nice shot from over here” I listen. When they say “that animal works best in the morning or on cloudy days” I don’t argue. Many of my best shots are from times when I have followed their suggestions.

Jay and Kathleen really work hard to try to get you the shots you want. They will never do anything that jeopardizes the animals and in fact they can’t make the animals do anything that they don’t want to do. But Jay and Kathleen are extremely flexible and will work hard to get the shot you want. You want to start at 5 am? No problem. You want a shot of a standing bear? No problem. You want to photograph a mother wolf and her pups together? No problem. Not only is their approach flexible but they have numerous places to photograph, each one slightly different. You want water reflection shots? Wildflower meadows? Rocky cliffs? Perched on logs? Peeping around a tree? Surrounded by snow? With craggy mountains behind? On a carcass? In a burrow? Howling? No problem. Are you getting my point?

Now these animals don’t pose and they aren’t trained to obey commands like a pet dog might. The animals are trained to stay in one general area and are rewarded by pieces of meat if they behave properly. If the animal doesn’t feel like cooperating that day Kathleen or Jay will bring out a back-up animal to photograph so you won’t have to try to get a shot of an animal that doesn’t want to be photographed. Most other places don’t do this and you are stuck often in a bad photographic situation.