diff --git a/R/ollama.R b/R/ollama.R
index 9dc3773..f8f0d81 100644
--- a/R/ollama.R
+++ b/R/ollama.R
@@ -82,10 +82,14 @@ create_request <- function(endpoint, host = NULL) {
 #' generate("llama3", "The sky is...", stream = TRUE, output = "text")
 #' generate("llama3", "The sky is...", stream = TRUE, output = "text", temperature = 2.0)
 #' generate("llama3", "The sky is...", stream = FALSE, output = "jsonlist")
-generate <- function(model, prompt, suffix = "", images = list(), system = "", template = "", context = list(), stream = FALSE, raw = FALSE, keep_alive = "5m", output = c("resp", "jsonlist", "raw", "df", "text"), endpoint = "/api/generate", host = NULL, ...) {
+generate <- function(model, prompt, suffix = "", images = "", system = "", template = "", context = list(), stream = FALSE, raw = FALSE, keep_alive = "5m", output = c("resp", "jsonlist", "raw", "df", "text"), endpoint = "/api/generate", host = NULL, ...) {
 
     req <- create_request(endpoint, host)
     req <- httr2::req_method(req, "POST")
+
+    images_list <- list()
+    if (images != "") images_list <- list(image_encode_base64(images))
+
     body_json <- list(
         model = model,
         prompt = prompt,
@@ -95,7 +99,7 @@ generate <- function(model, prompt, suffix = "", images = list(), system = "", t
         context = context,
         stream = stream,
         raw = raw,
-        images = images,
+        images = images_list,
         stream = stream,
         keep_alive = keep_alive
     )
diff --git a/R/utils.R b/R/utils.R
index fb89d5b..63a7366 100644
--- a/R/utils.R
+++ b/R/utils.R
@@ -191,6 +191,9 @@ resp_process_stream <- function(resp, output) {
 #' image_path <- file.path(system.file('extdata', package = "ollamar"), "image1.png")
 #' image_encode_base64(image_path)
 image_encode_base64 <- function(image_path) {
+    if (!file.exists(image_path)) {
+        stop("Image file does not exist.")
+    }
     img_raw <- readBin(image_path, "raw", file.info(image_path)$size)
     return(base64enc::base64encode(img_raw))
 }