Connor Cummings, a 20-year-old college student from Rockaway, New Jersey, died Wednesday night after falling from an elevated area of the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, where he and a friend had gone to photograph the city skyline.

Police said Cummings and his 18-year-old friend, Dimitri Olivares, were not guests at the 52-story hotel. According to police sources, they took an elevator to the top floor, climbed stairs to a rooftop exit and used a ladder to reach an area with catwalks around mechanical equipment. Cummings fell and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Accounts differed on how the fall happened and how far he fell. One report said he slipped on rain-wet scaffolding and dropped nine stories into an interior shaft. Another, citing police sources, said he stepped off a catwalk while walking backward and taking photographs, falling about 25 feet onto the roof.

Olivares sought help and was questioned by police, who released him without charges. Hotel officials said they were cooperating with the investigation and offered condolences to Cummings’s family.

Cummings was a sophomore psychology major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a graduate of Morris Knolls High School. He took photography courses and held a leadership role in the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. Family and friends remembered his passion for photography and his kindness. His aunt, Kate Gentile, said the family was seeking answers and described him as a photography enthusiast rather than a daredevil.