Gallery Opening: Cira Crowell "Sublime Light" | Thursday, December 4, 2025, 7 PM

"Sublime Light” is a celebration of mountain photographs made over ten years in the High Himalayas by photographer, film producer, and mountaineer Cira Crowell. Over the past decade Cira has photographed at extreme elevations. She has summited four technical Himalayan peaks over 20,000ft/6,000m and in 2022 was the first American-born woman to summit Kangchenjunga at 28,169ft/8,586m. The digital SL System has accompanied Cira on many of these treks and has proven to be a powerful, flexible, trustworthy tool that reflects the immensity, transcendence and fierce beauty of the highest and most remote peaks on earth.

The exhibition is composed of 13 black and white portraits of peaks including Everest, Kangchenjunga, Annapurna, Makalu, Manaslu, Imja, Kangtega and Cholatse. These photographs are a rare synthesis of technological precision, physical endurance, and deep philosophical perspective. They are images that touch us with emotion and awe as they celebrate the power and spirit of the mountains and the people who inhabit them. The luminous prints uplift and inspire viewers to explore their own literal or metaphorical peak experiences and to appreciate the sublime beauty of these rarely photographed heights.

Cira Crowell is an accomplished photographer and film producer dedicated to combining her passion for Art, Adventure, and Awareness. Her film “Dream Mountain” won “Best Mountainfilm” at the London Mountain Film Festival and has appeared in 25 top-tier international festivals including seven Mountainfilm Alliance festivals and the Banff Mountain Film World Tour. “Dream Mountain” follows the inspiring story of mountaineer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita as she summits Cholatse (6,446m/21,130ft) during a pivotal crux in her life. Leica cameras and lenses were instrumental in the making of the film.

Cira’s love for black and white photography was inspired thirty years ago by the Leicaflex SL2, the predecessor of the digital SL System. While the SL is her go-to, she has used and/or completed professional projects with every major Leica system of the past century. For the past ten years Cira’s work has increasingly focused on mountains, from her home in the Rockies, to the Canadian Rockies, Alps, Japan, and the Himalayas.

Even on extreme adventures Cira approaches her photographs with a poetic, philosophical eye, infusing images with technical detail as well as deep meaning. Her large-scale prints have been exhibited worldwide, most recently at Leica Gallery in Los Angeles. Three of Cira’s photographs are part of the corporate collection at Leica Camera USA.

If you would like to see more of Cira's work, please visit: 

https://ciracrowell.com/

@CiraCrowell

@LeicaCrush

@dreammountainfilm