The bug is here:

# check if the field's not null, if not, array it 
if ($photo != "") {push(@array, $photo);}
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You're using "!=" to compare strings, but it only compares numbers. See perlop for the gory details. You should be using "ne" instead, though you might also want to check if it's defined.

What happens on that line is that a string in $photo is treated as a number, which will be zero unless it starts with some other digits. That number is then compared to the number that "" is translated to (zero). So you have "if ( 0 != 0 )". As such, @array is still empty by the time you get down to the print.