After much fiddling with numbers it was determined that, at the scales at which we are working on the Prince of Wales Hotel Hill, differences in ratios of distances between points in the distant background are not sufficiently accurately reflected by changes of camera position less than 100cm. I have a hunch that Smith knew this all along. Though I'm not sure whether she was humoring me by letting me figure this out for myself, or whether she wanted to gather some solid data verifying the limitations of the Harrison method.
Anyway, the upshot, it seems to me, of the application of the method is that we have the original camera position pretty much nailed, down to three decimal places no less; and without stable middle- or foreground features, it's not possible to do better than that. The question now is, what do we do now to keep narrowing in on Riggall's historic photo? There is still room to refine the camera position, and we haven't yet been worrying too much about time of day, although I think it must be sometime around high noon, and then there is getting the weather and the clouds just right. Hmm.
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