Greenlaw was attached to the 46th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry. He modified Talbot's calotype process for use in the excessive heat of southern India, this modification becoming known as Greenlaw's Process. He exhibited at the Madras Exhibition of Raw Products, Arts and Manufactures of Southern India in 1855 and again in 1857, alongside Capt. Tripe, Dr. Murray and others. The Jury Report on this exhibition, mentioned in The Photographic News, 15 January 1869, states "It would be supposed from the nature of Photography that all pictures executed by its means must possess a similarity and style...this is not the case...the best Indian Photographs in the Exhibition, those by Capt. Tripe and Capt. Greenlaw, exemplify this in a marked manner. The views by Capt. Tripe excel in finish and delicacy - those by Capt. Greenlaw in boldness, freedom and effect, the former are perhaps the best photographs, but the latter are the best pictures."

This animated street scene is a rare example of one of Greenlaw's less formal architectural subjects. Only four other negatives are known to exist outside of the main archive of his surviving work, which is now in a private collection.