Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg (b. 1950) was born in San Francisco but spent most of his childhood in the American Midwest. His interest in photography began in the mid-1960s, and by the age of seventeen, he was studying under the legendary Ansel Adams. Folberg continued his photographic education at the University of California at Berkeley and through individualized study with landscape photographer William Garnett. This culminated in a Bachelor of Arts in Photographic Field Studies.

In 1976, Folberg and his wife relocated to Jerusalem, a move that marked a turning point in his artistic journey. He began producing color landscapes throughout the deserts of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, resulting in his 1987 monograph In a Desert Land. He was later commissioned by Aperture to document synagogues across the Jewish Diaspora—a project that culminated in the book And I Shall Dwell Among Them, a visual exploration of sacred spaces across the globe.

Folberg then returned to black-and-white photography for Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land, a series in which he digitally combined images of ancient Middle Eastern landscapes with celestial night skies. This ambitious and poetic body of work won First Place in Photography at the New York Book Show in 2002. In these images, the earth and cosmos seem to echo one another, offering a spiritual reflection on permanence, transience, and human connection to the universe.

His subsequent publications include Travels with Van Gogh and the Impressionists (2005), which followed his interpretive exploration of landscapes painted by the great masters, and Serpent’s Chronicle, a staged photographic narrative that further explores myth and the human condition.

Folberg’s work has been exhibited internationally and is held in prominent collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Yale University Art Museum, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. He continues to live and work in Jerusalem, where he remains committed to creating photography that merges visual beauty with philosophical inquiry.