View with nodes but pull only one field from collection
There is another solution mentioned in the issue that you reference in your answer that I would say is a good solution.


Add a new view mode. You could use the entity view modes module if you didn't want to code it yourself.
Configure that view mode for your field collection so that it only shows the photo and not the caption.
Don't add a relationship to the field collection because it will cause rows per field collection item.
Configure your view to display the field collection as one of the fields. Select the view mode you created. In the "Multiple field settings" part of the field definition configure it to Display 1 value(s) starting from 0 to just show the first one.