Gallery Opening: Cira Crowell "Sublime Light"

Kick off Art Basel weekend with Leica Store Miami on Thursday, December 4, 2025 at 7 PM EST as we celebrate the opening of Cira Crowell's exhibition "Sublime Light." Over the past decade, photographer Cira Crowell has trekked 2,000 miles in the Himalayas with her Leica SL-System, photographing extreme elevations and summiting technical peaks. Her exhibition at Leica Store Miami features 13 black and white portraits of peaks including Everest, Kangchenjunga, Annapurna, Makalu, Manaslu, Imja, Kangtega and Cholatse.

"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 trekked 2,000 miles in the Himalayas, photographing extreme elevations and summiting technical peaks including the otherworldly Kangchenjunga, Earth’s third highest point. The digital SL System has accompanied Cira on many of these treks and has proven to be a powerful, flexible, trustworthy tool for image-making 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 been screened at top festivals globally. Leica cameras and lenses were instermental in the making of “Dream Mountain” which follows the inspiring story of mountaineer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita as she summits Cholatse (6,446m/21,130ft) during a pivotal time in her life.

Thirty years ago Cira’s love for black and white photography was inspired 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, Mt. Fuji, and the Himalayas where she has trekked over 2,000 miles on foot while on fifteen expeditions in remote regions of Nepal.

Cira has summited four technical peaks over 20,000ft / 6,000m and in 2022 was the first American-born woman to summit Kangchenjunga at 28,169ft/8,586m. 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/