Ruby on Rails

Working with Rails 3.0

From numerous controllers with associated views, I need to display images.

In the views to retrieve an images I have:

 <img src="<%= get_image_path(@object.image_file_name) %> />

get_image_path is defined in the Application helper:

module ApplicationHelper
  def get_image_path(sought_image_file_name)

    return_string = ''
    unless (sought_image_file_name.blank?    ## although I do testing for blank?  image_file_name in the erb view
      return_string = "#{Rails.application.root}/public/images/item_images/" + sought_image_file_name
      ### Have tried return_string "../public and "./public and these have not worked
    end
    return return_string
  end
...

But I keep getting the error:

Started GET "/home/echomarket/echomarket.org/public/images/item_images/zv37bNYgL25LisYvnGfGkKMndfm7ZD_Chrysanthemum.jpg" for ...

ActionController::RoutingError (No route matches "/home/echomarket/echomarket.org/public/images/item_images/zv37bNYgL25LisYvnGfGkKMndfm7ZD_Chrysanthemum.jpg"):

The file definitely exists in that path, per FIleZilla and Putty

I do not understand the tie between routes.rb and multiple controllers....

Thanks,

Liz