Sure.  Just look at what's inside `$views` and grab the path/url of the image there and stuff that into `$background_image` and then do something like:

    <div class="container-inner clearfix" style="background: url(<?php print $background_image; ?>)">

**Sidenote:**  it might be better to this in a preprocess hook and pass in this as a variable instead of putting this logic in your `page.tpl.php` file, eg, something like:

    function my_module_or_theme_preprocess_page(&$vars) {

      // $views=views_embed_view('photos', 'block');
      $views=views_get_view_result('photo', 'block'); // appears to work easier :)
      $background_image=// however you get the url/path to the image from $views;

      $vars['background_image']=$background_image;

    }

which will create a `$background_image` variable that is now available inside `page.tpl.php`.


  [1]: https://api.drupal.org/api/views/views.module/function/views_get_view_result/7