Are movies "cursed"? Are photographs?

"Tim at 'Beast' opening," Lucy Winner phone cam

Saturday's opening of the show "Beast," in which I had two photos, was a big success. In the picture above, taken at the gallery, I can be seen crossing in front of one of my photos, the one titled "Esther."

Today a lady from the gallery called to tell me that last night the "Esther" picture inexplicably fell off the wall, shattering the glass in the frame & gouging the print. Part of a series of gigantic building-sized ads for upcoming movies that I've been photographing for several years, "Esther" advertised a movie called "Orphan." The tagline read, "Something is wrong with Esther."

Let me explain.

In the movie Esther is a strangely beautiful child adopted by a couple who are grieving their recently stillborn baby. These parents think Esther is nine years old, but in fact she's a 33-year-old woman named Leena Klammer who suffers from hypopituartisim, which has stunted her growth. Esther has escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane & is making her way across the country, posing as a little girl. Along the way she has committed a string of gruesome, bloody murders. In this movie she gets angrier & angrier. First, she kills an unfortunate nun & then the good-hearted husband. Finally, she tries to kill the wife and her two children. At the end of the movie Esther ends up getting kicked in the teeth by her new mommy & sinking beneath the surface of a frozen lake.

After all that, she must be really, really pissed, right? I mean poltergeist-smashing-glass-pissed? I mean psycho-killer-on-the-loose pissed? Am I right?

When the gallery lady reached me with the bad news, she said, "We couldn't figure out why the picture fell. The frame wasn't broken... In fact..." she said, it's as though... the picture... jumped off the wall."

Oh god...