John Beasley Greene an Egyptologist and student of photographer Gustave Le Gray, is historically one of the most important landscape photographers. He was a modernist photographer before Modernism; his images fuse monuments with site, emphasizing tonal nuance, spatial relationships, and overlooked landmasses rather than the more typical central focus on a solid monument surrounded by a site. John Beasley Greene became one of the first practicing archaeologists to use photography, though he maintained separate files for documentary images and his more artistic landscapes. In 1853, he embarked on his first expedition, creating over 250 plates of the Egyptian and Nubian landscape, with their monuments and inscriptions, and publishing an album upon his return. In the following few years, he would take two more trips, documenting excavations in Upper Egypt, and Christian monuments and landscapes in Algeria. His photographs were highly regarded by fellow Egyptologists for both their quality and archaeological value. Greene was a member of the Société Française de Photographie and died at the early age of 24, most likely of tuberculosis, leaving behind a significant body of work.