Thanks for your answer. It wasn't quite was I was looking for. Adding the limit does return one record, however, I'm looking to return the first image of an object relation. So, if I put the limit of 1 in there, I get just one record returned whereas I'd like all records (animals) displayed with the first related photo.
$node.object.data_map.photography is an object relations that contains multiple photos. I need a way to get just the first image out of it.
That will do fine, but just so you know it this will contain objects in the trash as well.
In newer eZ Publish versions there is attribute on the relation called ''in_trash" or something. On older versions (and new ones) it is visible on the main_node_id of the object you fetch (it will be false / null / empty).
One alternative to looping over the relations list is to use the fetch('content', 'relation') (see doc).