A Greene Man’s Blog

Here I am singing and signing the song “Pure Imagination” from the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, one of my favorite songs since I was a little kid.

And here are the lyrics:

Come with me / and you’ll be / in a world of pure imagination / Take a look / and you’ll see / into your imagination

We’ll begin / with a spin / traveling in a world of my creation / What we’ll see / will defy / explanation

If you want to view paradise / simply look around and view it / anything you want to, do it / want to change the world? / there’s nothing to it

There is no / life I know / to compare with pure imagination / living there / you’ll be free / if you truly wish to be

Man to Man, originally uploaded by danielgreene.

This is one in a series of four shots I took experimenting with the “digital multiple exposure” technique. This was my longest and, I think, most effective exposure of the series; that is, my ghostly images are the most apparent in this exposure.

How did I do it? I set the camera to its lowest ISO speed and its smallest aperture. I put the camera on a tripod. I set the shooting mode to remote/timer and the shutter speed to bulb. I walked into frame, aimed my remote shutter control at the camera, pressed the button to start a bulb exposure, and held a position for 30-45 seconds, then quickly moved to another position and held that for another 30-45 seconds, then pressed the button on my remote to close the shutter.

It was fun being creative. It reminded me of an improvisational acting class.

When I was eight, I went on about 25 commercial auditions with my maternal grandmother in NYC. I once went up for a peanut butter commercial against the boy who played Mikey in the famous Life Cereal commercial– you know, they one where the brother says, “He likes it! Hey, Mikey!” Well, “Mikey” was about 9 or 10 by that time. Of course, he booked the gig and I saw him on TV a few weeks later. There’s nothing like auditioning in NYC as a child to make your life surreal. I would see the competition in the waiting room and then see them on TV a few weeks later. It was strange and disappointing to audition and never get anything. Eventually, I stopped getting calls from my agent.

Apparently, none of the exhuberance I had on the train to the city translated to the studio once I got there. I would be an excited little ham on the train, telling anyone around that I was going to an audition, but I would clam up in the audition itself. Of course, I never had any acting training or preparation for commercial television. Oh well.

Thank God I went to the School of Creative and Performing Arts when I was 11 and got a great performing arts education for 7 years. I’m happy to say that I’ve had many rewarding performance experiences in my life since then. I even finally got to do a local television commercial.