PHP / HTML - Load image from outside root folder

Question

I am trying to load in an image in a <img> tag within HTML. My images folder is in the same folder as the root folder, meaning I need to go up one folder to access the images folder.

I looked around the internet and found the method using GET requests within the src attribute from the image, unfortunately without success.

Folder Structure:

img >
    somefile.png
    foo.png
    bar.png
html >
    index.php
    imageRequest.php
    //other root files

I cannot use the following: <img src="../img/somefile.png"> because it points towards to something non existant (duh!). So I attempted to use the GET request.

My HTML

<div>
   <img src="imageRequest.php?requested=somefile.png">
</div>

My PHP (imageRequest.php)

    $fileName = $_GET['requested'];
    fetchImage();

    function fetchImage(){
        global $fileName;
        if(!isset($fileName)) return;
        $filePath = dirname($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'])."/img/".$fileName;
        if(file_exists($filePath)){
            readfile($filePath);
        }
    }

TL;DR: Use image from folder outside the root folder within the <img> tag.

Answer 1

Get that image using PHP as base64 image and output that content along with proper headers:

[imageRequest.php?requested=some_file.png]

$imagesDir = __DIR__.'/../';
$content = file_get_contents($imagesDir.$_GET['requested']);
$content = base64_encode($content);

$data = "data:image/png;base64,{$content}";

header('Content-Type: image/png');
echo base64_decode($data);`