Without a MCVE and actual requirements on which image you want from the images table and a better understanding of why you need a left join when your where clause makes it behave like an inner… and why the where clause is so complex… …I’m really unsure what the question is after… Here’s a shot… and a DEMO:http://rextester.com/CRBN50943
Sample data expected results always a plus: I made my own and several assumptions
I interperted the question as: I would like a list of the categories along with a image having the earliest alphabetic value for each category.
SELECT
CI.Image,
CI.FileURL,
C.catname,
C.`status`,
C.sortorder,
C.parentID,
CI.CatID
FROM pm_categories C
INNER JOIN pm_categories_images CI
ON CI.CatID = C.catID
INNER JOIN (SELECT Min(Image) MI, catID FROM pm_categories_images group by CATID) Z
on CI.Image = Z.MI
and CI.CatID = Z.CatId
##WHERE C.catname="Videography"
Order by sortOrder
Giving us
+----+------------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+-----------+----------+-------+
| | Image | FileURL | catname | status | sortorder | parentID | CatID |
+----+------------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+-----------+----------+-------+
| 1 | guid1.jpg | https://drive.google.com/BusinessID/Postings/ | Real Estate | 1 | 1 | NULL | 1 |
| 2 | guid4.jpg | https://drive.google.com/BusinessID/Postings/ | commercial | 1 | 2 | NULL | 2 |
| 3 | guid6.jpg | https://drive.google.com/BusinessID/Postings/ | Videography | 1 | 3 | NULL | 3 |
| 4 | guid10.jpg | https://drive.google.com/BusinessID/Postings/ | Other | 1 | 4 | NULL | 4 |
| 5 | guid11.jpg | https://drive.google.com/BusinessID/Postings/ | LackingMCVE | 1 | 5 | NULL | 5 |
+----+------------+-----------------------------------------------+-------------+--------+-----------+----------+-------+
solved get one record based upon catname