PHP loop within an sql (mysql) query

[eluser]ditch[/eluser]
Hello All, please bare with me as i'm new to programming as of 1 week ago. I'm using a combination of PHP and mysql to upload my picture paths to later be called via html and presented to the screen. Pictures are uploaded via a form with 4 image-upload inputs within the form.<-- users can upload from 1-4 images. The images paths are then uploaded to mysql table with the following column heading:
image0, image1, image2, image3

Is it possible to use PHP *within* a sql query? in particular a for loop?

This is what I had in mind in simple code:

$sql = "INSERT INTO items (user_id,title,comment,<--for loop--&gt;,date_created,active) VALUES ('$user_id','$item_title','$item_comment',<--for loop--&gt;'$today','$active')";

the <--for loop--&gt; would be something like this:

for ($i=1, $i<=$count, $i++){
image[$i];
}

$count = the number of images uploaded from the form
Doing this would then get the query to only INSERT the images it received from the form.

possible?