Laurence Brahm, film director and Himalayan explorer has spent a quarter century searching for legendary realm of Shambhala. These journeys have been recorded in a series of documentary films produced by Shambhala Studio Films, and in his upcoming book “Searching for Shambhala.” The photos displayed here were all taken during his 2004 expedition in Ngari, the most western part of China Tibet Autonomous Region. This 2004 Shambhala Studio expedition followed a route described in the Shambhala Sutra, an ancient text. These photos capture the spirit of pilgrims arriving at Mount Kailash and the ruins of the Guge Kingdom. Throughout this expedition, one single question was asked. Where is Shambhala?

Laurence Brahm is an explorer, author, and international award-winnning film director and producer. He is the founder of Shambhala Studio, specializing in films related to Himalayan culture and Asian martial arts.
In 2021 he received the China Book Special Contribution Award. In 2019 at the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, he received the Friendship Award. In 2016, he received the China Social Responsibility Award for his work drafting the national Ecological Civilization policy. In 2016, he received the National Geographic Air and Water Conservation Awared for raising environmental awarness through his Himalayan documentary films. In 2015, he was elected as International Fellow of the Explorer Club in New York. In 2015, Icelandic President Olavr Ragnar Grimsson invited him to join the Himalayan Third Pole Circle, a group formulating policies to address glacier melting caused by climate change. From 2014 to 2019, he served as the spokesperson and chairman of the Himalayan Consensus Summit. From 2013 to 2015, he served as a senior advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection and was a lead drafter of Ecological Civilization, China's national environmental protection policy. In 2012, as the spokesperson for the non-governmental organization at the 2012 United Nations Earth Summit (Rio+20), he was selected by ScenaRio as one of the 100 opinion leaders advising Rio+20. In 2010, he was awarded the United Nations Development Programme China Biodiversity and Cultural Conservation Award by Jane Goodall. He is also a senior international researcher at the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank. He serves as a policy advisor expert at the China Foreign Experts Bureau, is an international conflict resolution lawyer, and an environmentalist.