Cira Crowell is an accomplished photographer and film producer with a personal mission dedicated to combining passions for Art, Adventure and Awareness. The founder of InLightWorks Productions, she Executive Produced the international award winning film Dream Mountain, which has appeared in 25 top-tier international festivals including 7 Mountainfilm Alliance festivals and the esteemed Banff Mountain Film World Tour. As an image maker Cira is an exhibiting fine art photographer specializing in high altitude black and white photography, primarily across the Himalayas where she has travelled, trekked 2,000 miles and climbed technical peaks for a decade. Cira is one of a few women permanently exhibited in the Leica USA corporate collection and her work was one of 50 photographs selected for the “Leica 100” centennial celebrations. Recently, she collaborated with Leica + Aether Apparel on the design of a special edition “Reporter Jacket.” An experienced teacher, speaker, and philanthropist, Cira has traveled the world sharing her knowledge and supporting women’s empowerment, the arts, and humanitarian causes. Cira holds an M.A. from the Savannah College of Art and Design, her passion extends to arts leadership as she has served as a museum trustee, chairperson and participated on multiple museum committees for many years. Cira is based in Los Angeles and in the Southern Rocky mountains in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Arts         
Cira believes arts present opportunities for unique perspectives into our inner and outer worlds. Following years as a painter, she has spent a more than a decade intensely focused on the mastery of black and white photography and the transcendent beauty of life in the High Himalayas. Overcoming systemic discouragements, she has achieved long-held dreams. In response, her desire to share the light of inspiration with others has become one of the driving forces behind her deep work and consistent message. Beginning in 2009 Cira became involved with the only museum in the United States dedicated to a single female artist, The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, serving on the National Council as National Council President, then on the Board of Trustees with responsibilities on multiple committees including Chairperson of Collections.
As an exhibiting artist Cira is one of two women permanently exhibited in the Leica USA corporate offices and was selected as one of fifty photographers to represent the United States in the “Leica 100 – Witness to a Century” event in New York. Her photographs have been exhibited across the United States in venues such as the Leica Gallery Los Angeles and Tibet House: US in New York, as well as internationally including Frankfurt, Germany, and Kathmandu, Nepal. In 2022 her solo exhibition “Dream Mountain” was shown alongside the Leica Women Foto Project in Los Angeles. Cira has also exhibited her new media work with a solo exhibition of her new media drawings and projected animations at Robert Berman Gallery in Santa Monica, California, and numerous other venues. She continues to integrate monochromatic images and poetic insights into her social media feeds.

Adventure       
Cira believes adventure is life expanding, offering broader views of our personal capacities and shared earth. Over the past ten years Cira’s travels across the Himalayas stretched from Bhutan to Ladakh, trekking 2,000 miles in Nepal through districts including Taplejung, Makalu, Solukhumbu, Bagmati, Gorkha, Gandaki, Dolpo, Mustang, Jumla and Mugu. She has summited four technical Himalayan peaks over 20,000ft/6,000m including Cholatse, Lobuche East, and Imja Tse. On May 5, 2022 she was the first American-born woman to successfully summit the fierce and otherworldly 28,269ft/8,586m Kangchenjunga, alongside her dear friend the elite Sherpa Mountaineer Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita. In 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 Cira trekked with the Nomads Clinic, carefully documenting medical clinics treating thousands of villagers over the years in remote districts of Nepal.

Awareness      
Expanding her own and others awareness through education and service is deeply important to Cira. Each year she takes time to share her passion for the technicalities of black and white photography, teaching “The Language of Black and White” at Santa Fe Workshops. The workshop is regularly sponsored by Leica Camera USA/Leica Akademie.
To deepen her knowledge Cira participated in a years-long Chaplaincy training program and completed an Inner MBA certificate program. She has been a member of Upaya Zen Center for over a decade and also participated in and photographed two Kalachakra Initiations in India, Leh 2015 and Both Gaya 2018.
Cira has published several books in support of Nomads Clinic, Tibet House US, and other humanitarian causes, including Beautiful Resilience: The Enduring Spirit of Upper Gorkha Nepal, Envisioning Ecstasy, and 108 Visions: Ladakh During the Kalachakra.

Accomplishments     
in 2019 Cira founded InLightWorks Productions, LLC with the mission of “Sharing Stories of Inspiration.” The initial short documentary she Executive Produced, “Dream Mountain” won “Best Mountainfilm” at the London Mountainfilm Festival and has appeared in 25 top-tier international festivals including seven Mountainfilm Alliance festivals. It was selected for the esteemed “Banff Mountainfilm Festival World Tour” and reached audiences in 40 countries over the next three years. The inspiring film follows mountaineer, humanitarian and mother Pasang Lhamu Sherpa Akita in the challenging pursuit of her dreams.

Leica

Cira began taking pictures 30 years ago with a careworn Leicaflex SL2 film camera that once belonged to her grandfather. She has since used or completed professional projects with every major Leica system (film and digital) of the past century. Her passion for photography and Leica has continued as she travels internationally photographing some of the world’s most engaging natural and urban landscapes. In 2024 Leica + Aether Apparel approached Cira to participate alongside three esteemed international photographers in the collaborative design of a special edition “Reporter’s Jacket” that sold out in minutes. November 2025 marks a decade of Cira’s dedication to the Leica SL system, a digital version of her original film camera. To celebrate Cira looks forward to releasing significant bodies of work completed in the Himalayas, Alps, Rockies and mountains around the world.

Follow:
@CiraCrowell
@LeicaCrush
@dreammountainfilm
@InLightWorks
InLightWorks

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