Home - Madeline Jorden Photography

A woman sits in a field with her guitar while a horse sniffs her cheek.

Singer and songwriter Frankie Zwick draws inspiration for her music from seasonal work at ranches in the American West.

An aerial photograph of cattle moving through a barbed-wire fence.

Cattle flow through the gate from one pasture to the next at the culmination of a weekly cattle move that characterizes a rotational grazing program.

A portrait of a man with dappled sunlight on his face.

Skip of Charlo, Montana, a former employee of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, inherited the family dairy farm when his father retired. Choosing not to continue the family business, Skip sold the land to Fish and Wildlife, and now his home is surrounded by protected Wildlife Refuge.

A preserved sandhill crane specimen as seen through a magnifying glass.

Sandhill crane specimen from 1914 at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Specimens for museum collections were historically collected by hunting expeditions.

A double exposure photograph of a bulls head and blades of grass.

The Beefmaster breed was founded upon the principle of natural selection, and its rigorous culling program produces livestock that are well-adapted to the rangelands they graze.

A man wearing a mask lies facedown on a blue mat.

Aspiring luchador Estrella Occidentale trains at the gym with his coach for an upcoming match. Guadalajara, Mexico.

A man swings a lasso around at a horse stable.

A young charro practices rope tricks at the stables after practice while the escaramuzas untack their horses. Mexican men and women both perform in Mexican rodeos but are relegated to different events based on their gender.

An aerial photograph of the shadows of three cowboys.

Local ranchers of southeastern Colorado get their ropes ready during a branding. Brandings are a traditional spring event for cattle raisers in which the year's calves are branded with the owner's unique mark.

A silhouette of a woman on horseback wearing a hat.

Elisa Barba exercises her horse Palomino with the rest of her escaramuza team. The team of eight women performs routines with their horses in local rodeos.

A panning photograph of cattle grazing in a field.

Cattle graze in pasture alongside the highway in South Dakota.

A girl in a red dress stands in front of the altar of a church.

Valentina Carrillo, 15, stands for photographs with various members of her extended family after her quinceanera Mass in Guadalajara, Mexico.

The wolves lick each others mouths behind a mesh wire fence.

Chakra and Raksha, two wolves rescued by the Colorado Wolf Center in Divide, Colorado, share a kiss in their enclosure. While wild wolves are highly social animals, they will also frequently fight and kill each other, so animals at the Wolf Center are carefully matched for strong relationships.

Two women sit horseback while a man chalks lines in the arena behind them.

Two escaramuzas rest their horses while their coach marks out new lines for the next practice drill.

A man in a cowboy hat looks ahead as bison run behind him.

Duke Phillips III, a third-generation cattle rancher, now manages a herd of wild bison for the Nature Conservancy.

The silhouette of a sandhill crane in flight against golden clouds.

Sandhill crane in flight over Ouray National Wildlife Refuge during the fall migration.