Quote:
Originally Posted by Tourmaline
Since the field is wide, it is also likely that a wide angle lens was employed, suggesting the camera was not further south than 4th and Main. Was the camera on makeshift platform - erected for the shot - or could the cameraman have made use of preexisting/ongoing construction? Because a building is not in view doesn't preclude the possibility of its existence, or partial existence.
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It does in this case because we're looking at where the Hotel Westminster should be but is not. I agree that exactly
where the photo was taken from is in question, but the cross-street in the foreground -- just past the first little cluster of houses on the right side of Main -- is definitely 5th Street. And of course St. Vibiana's in the background is just below the SE corner of Main and 2nd Street:
In the pre-1888 photo, the building with the covered sidewalk on the east side of Main is at the SE corner with Winston, as shown on the Sanborn Map below. If the Westminster were built or building, we'd see it somewhere in the unbuilt area beyond.

1888 Sanborn @ LAPL
It might be possible to nail down the photo's date a little more precisely. In the photo it's not obvious that 4th Street goes through from Main Street to Los Angeles Street (maybe it does; it's hard to tell). According to the LA Times 1881 Map of LA -- which indicates that the site of the Hotel Westminster was then a circus grounds -- it did not:
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen....and=calisphere
But by 1884, it did:
http://imgzoom.cdlib.org/Fullscreen....z1&&brand=oac4
FWIW, the USC Digital Library dates their copy of the photo to 1877 (actual photo caption says "Probably in the late seventies"), but that's a little early if I'm right about that circled steeple belonging to the 1882 First Presbyterian Church:
http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/si...d/20685/rec/10
Last thought: Considering all the factors, a balloon location for the photographer seems entirely possible and perhaps even likely. I'm just surprised that there doesn't seem to be anyone on the ground looking up at what must have been a relatively novel sight . . . unless everyone is gathered right underneath and therefore out of frame.