Connor Cummings, a 20-year-old photography enthusiast from Rockaway, New Jersey, died Wednesday night after falling from scaffolding at the 52-story Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan. He and an 18-year-old friend had entered the hotel, where neither was a guest, and climbed toward the roof to photograph the city skyline.

Accounts differed on the circumstances of the fall. Police initially said Cummings fell nine stories down an interior shaft onto a lower landing after slipping on rain-soaked scaffolding. Another account, citing police sources, said he stepped off a rooftop catwalk while walking backward and taking pictures, falling about 25 feet. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Cummings’s friend returned to alert hotel security and was questioned by police, then released without charges. Investigators recovered photography equipment, and hotel officials said they were cooperating with police. Cummings’s aunt, Kate Gentile, said the family was seeking answers and described him as a photography enthusiast who was not a daredevil.

Cummings was a Morris Knolls High School graduate and a sophomore psychology major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He had taken photography courses and held a leadership role in the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. His school principal, fraternity brothers and friends mourned him, recalling his passion for photography, his kindness and his commitment to helping others.