How to render an Image Field as a URL in node.tpl.php
You can do this by getting the path to the file. 

&lt;?php $file = file_load($node-&gt;field_body_image['und'][0]['fid']); ?&gt;


Then render the path:

&lt;?php print file_create_url($file-&gt;uri); ?&gt;


I tested this and it works. In my case I had an event image in my local dev site and it rendered:

http://events.dev/sites/default/files/event-images/imagefield_7tgPJ7_0.jpg


In your tags, you did not specify Drupal 6 or 7 but my code above would be for Drupal 7.