render main image magento

I am trying to have the main (large) product image render. I am using magento 1.9 and the below code. What I get is the product image url rendering on the page but not the image itself. helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'image');?> When I use helper('catalog/image')($_product, image);?> I get a broken image icon. Thank you in advance for any advice you may offer.