trouble using fs module to locate file - node.js

Question

Here is my code:
connection.query("SELECT * FROM images", function(err, rows, fields) {
if (err) {
console.log("Error: ");
console.log(err);
}
else {
console.log("rows: ");
console.log(rows);
for (var i = 0; i < rows.length; i++) {
var thisRow = rows[i];
var thisImageName = thisRow["imagename"];
var newDir = __dirname.split(path.sep).join("/");
var thisImagePath = newDir + "/public/uploads/" + thisImageName + ".jpg";
console.log(thisImagePath);
fs.exists(thisImagePath, function(exists) {
if (exists) {
console.log("true");
res.end();
}
else {
console.log(thisImageName + " does not exist."); res.end();
//Always returns false
}
});
}
}
});
HOWEVER,
In the console:
fs.exists(/* imagepath */, function(exists){console.log(exists)}) //returns true
As you can see I'm using the node-mysql library to return the file names of my images. I concatenate them using the __dirname global and then I reverse the slashes in the directory string to use in the .exists() call. When I use the fs module to check if the image file exists, it returns false.
HOWEVER, if I use fs.exists() with the same path in the console, it returns true. Does anyone know what's going on here?