The below code seems like it should work; however, the blob in the database only contains 0 after the function is run. Does the below code look accurate? If not how can I fix it?

$tmpName  = $_FILES['picture']['tmp_name'];

$fp      = fopen($tmpName, 'r');
$binary = fread($fp, filesize($tmpName));
fclose($fp);

$originalImage = imagecreatefromstring($binary);
$tempImage = imagecreate(100,100);
imagecopyresized($tempImage,$originalImage,0,0,0,0,100,100);
ob_start();
imageJPEG($tempImage);
$thumbnail = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

$wpdb->query("UPDATE ".$wpdb->prefix."items SET picture = $thumbnail WHERE id=$id'");

Thank :)!