The problem is with your understanding of os.listdir() not os.path.abspath(). os.listdir() returns the names of each of the files in the directory. This will give you:
img1.jpg
img2.jpg
...
When you pass these to os.path.abspath(), they are seen as relative paths. This means it is relative to the directory from where you are executing your code. This is why you get “D:\code\img1.jpg”.
Instead, what you want to do is join the file names with the directory path you are listing.
os.path.abspath(os.path.join(directory, file))