Connor Cummings, a 20-year-old college student from Rockaway, New Jersey, died Wednesday night after falling while he and a friend were taking photographs at the Four Seasons Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

Police said Cummings and his 18-year-old friend had reached a restricted rooftop area of the 52-story hotel, where they were trying to photograph the city skyline. Neither was a hotel guest. Cummings fell from a structure near the roof and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The accounts differ on the circumstances of the fall. One report said Cummings slipped while stepping through a hatch in rain-soaked scaffolding and fell nine stories onto a lower landing. Another said he fell while climbing down. A third, citing police sources, said he stepped backward off a rooftop catwalk while taking photographs and fell about 25 feet. Police questioned his friend and released him without charges. Hotel officials said they were cooperating with the investigation and offered condolences to Cummings’s family.

Cummings’s aunt, Kate Gentile, said the family was seeking answers. She described him as a photography enthusiast but said he was not a daredevil. Cummings was a sophomore psychology major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he took photography courses and held a leadership role in the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. He had graduated from Morris Knolls High School, whose principal described him as a fine student with a bright future.

Friends and fraternity brothers remembered Cummings for his passion for photography, his willingness to help others and his devotion to the people close to him.