Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg was born in 1950 in San Francisco

Folberg was born in San Francisco on April 7, 1950. His father, Joseph Folberg, ran a gallery in the city. At 16 he was invited to study with Ansel Adams at a workshop Adams had set up in Yosemite National Park.

In 1967 he entered the University of California at Berkeley to study natural sciences. He later moved to photography, guided by William Garnett and mentored by Ansel Adams.

He moved to Israel in 1976 and began photographing the southern desert in color. These images, with others from Sinai and Jordan, formed his first book, In a Desert Land, in 1987. His 1995 book on historic synagogues around the world, And I Shall Dwell Among Them, received the National Jewish Book Award.

Later books include Celestial Nights in 2001, made by digitally combining negatives of night skies and land, and Serpent's Chronicle in 2013, which told the Adam and Eve story from the snake's view. Taking Measure, shot in Iceland and the Faroe Islands, came out in 2016, and A Mirror in Macedonia, with photos from 1971, in 2021.

In 1998, after his father died, he moved his father's Vision Gallery from San Francisco to Jerusalem. His work is held by museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Israel Museum.