Neil Orloff

Neil Orloff 5/9/43 ~ 4/26/03  Neil Orloff, a leading environmental lawyer and noted documentary photographer, passed away on April 26, 2003 at age 59. Neil's simultaneous careers as a lawyer and artist captured the combination of a powerful intellect and artistic imagination that defined a rich and productive life. After receiving an electrical engineering degree from M.I.T., an MBA from Harvard and a law degree from Columbia University, Neil went to work for the World Bank. Weary of traveling to Africa, Neil shifted his professional focus and began his career as an environmental lawyer at the President's Council of Environmental Quality and joined the Environmental Protection Agency soon after its creation. Thereafter he taught environmental law at Cornell University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and served as the director of the university's Center for Environmental Research. Neil then added to his government and academic experience by practicing environmental law, first as a partner in Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, California, and then at Parsons Behle and Latimer in Salt Lake City. Neil's legal career reflected his broad range of intelligence. For him, understanding the role of environmental law required securing the full range of perspectives: governmental, business, academic and private practice. While practicing environmental law, Neil developed an independent career as an honored documentary photographer. His work led to positions as an artist in residence at the MacDowel Colony and the Yaddo  Center, an unusual tribute for someone who was a full time artist only in spirit and talent. In 2001, Neil returned to Cornell University as a visiting professor in the Art Department to teach documentary photography, one of the few individuals to have held faculty appointments in both the College of Engineering and the College of Art, Architecture and Planning. Neil's photography was featured in one man and group shows including the Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, New York, the Schneider Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, the Edgar Carter Gallery, New York, New York and the Art Access and the Phillips galleries in Salt Lake City. His photographic study of the homeless in Salt Lake City- Under the Fifth Street Underpass -was awarded a Utah Governor's Award in the Humanities in 2000, and was published by Art Access Gallery in a book of the same name. Neil is survived by his wife, Gudrun Mirin. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Neil Orloff Memorial Fund at the Fifty Crows Foundation for documentary photography, 1074 Folsom Street, San Francisco, California, 94103.  (415) 551-0091