problem with the absolute path.

[spookie]

hi everybody,
i am displaying dynamic images(image change with the refresh button) and i am fetching image name and location from MySQL.
now when i insert image location as '

http://www.host_name.com/imagepath'

it works fine but if i insert an absolute path on my Unix server like /home/httpd/..images/
the image doesnt get displayed.
why this is so?
spookie