Caught On Camera

Some Crazy Moments Photographed On My Travels

I have taken a lot of photos over the years, and always had a camera on me (35mm film), usually due to work, being on holiday or simply traveling.

Sometimes I managed to be in the right place at the right time or wrong depending how you look at it, and captured some strange happenings.

One thing these images have in common are, they happened in front of me and bring back memories of that day, at the time it was just a coincidence that I happened to have a camera, unlike now days most people have a camera on them, in their phones, pens, and even their watches.

I've collected a few of these photos from Spain and included their stories for your entertainment, I hope you enjoy.

Smoke and Flames

First in the series of photographs, a tree burning for no apparent reason in Benidorm Spain, you could see the flames and it looked serious as it loomed over a shop full of people. The Spanish shop keeper climbed up onto his flimsy roof and threw a bucket of water at it which failed to hit the tree.

 

 

Benidorm Costa Blanca

 

 The shop owner evacuated the premisses, cleared his stock first and then called the Fire Brigade and Police.

 

 

Palm Tree Fire

Eventually the Fire Brigade turned up and extinguished the fire. The culprit of the fire, well the clue is in the shop owners mouth, a cigarette. Probably thrown from a window from the apartment block above, apparently this happens often.

 

 Faulty Hand Break 

 

Aguas de Busot

This happened whilst I was working on a house across the road and up the hill in a small Spanish village, a skip lorry – rubbish container. Smashed into the wall, demolishing the kitchen wall and most of the inside, flooding the place, eventually a crane and the police turned up to remove it.

Images taken by ShearArt at the time.

 

 

New work opportunity

After the crane had gone, and several days later, the home owner who was absent at the time didn’t seemed too fazed with what had happened, but he did get a little irritable when I gave him my card and asked if I could give him a quotation for the rebuild. A-B-C.

 

Collapsing Gardens 

 

Rogue Builders

LA Nucia Alicante

I was called to a job after the whole garden had cracked and the patio around the swimming pool had collapsed, next door’s ended up down the mountain after a heavy rain.

 

 

Temporary Repairs

What really happened was the pool guy left a hose on filling the pool and it over ran all night, washed away the mountain. The whole garden had dropped and the owners had people booked into the house for the summer, so he asked us to re-concrete and tile it as if nothing had happened.

 

Risky

The owner had a company build a stack of concrete blocks underneath on top of the collapsing stone hill. They managed to go through the summer without any more movement and then got locked into a legal battle that lasted years with the original Spanish builder. His attitude was, by the time this goes to court he will be retired.

 

Bad Santa 

Drunk on the job

 

This was at Christmas in a Tenerife hotel, the kids waited for Santa to give out gifts but he had other ideas and sat at the bar drinking in full view, it took four waiters half an hour to drag him out, by that time he had blown his cover.

 

The Same Hotel

Speaking of Spanish waiters, these guys risked holding up a ladder so one of them could climb up to change a light bulb, it swung dangerously close to the stairwell window which had a fifty foot drop on the other side. So there’s the answer to that one, it takes four waiters, three to hold the ladder.

This happened all in the same hotel and also my new, at the time expensive cell phone was lifted from a table. The phone company issued me with a new Sim card and the same number, six months later I received a call from a Policeman in Manchester England, they had raided a house and recovered a bag of Sim cards he seemed surprised that I answered. I was not surprised that my phoned wasn’t in the bag with it.

 

Blanket Trip

This bus was on its way to the popular tourist attraction village of Guadalest, inland on the Costa Blanca Spain. The tourists complained of the smoke in the back from the engine but the driver wouldn’t pull over, he eventually did and managed to get everyone out of the bus before it went up in flames. The company, Green tours is no longer running trips.

 

 

 

Crazy Gang

Car Chase Villajoyosa Alicante

I ran out my apartment block late one night to watch a car full of youths chasing down a lad on foot, they drove around the car park at speed chasing him and smashing twenty three cars. The runner hid behind the car in the picture above, so they rammed it. He took a trip to the hospital and a few miles down the road they were apprehended and jailed.

 

Tornado off the coast of Villajoyosa Costa Blanca

Tornado off the coast of Villajoyosa Costa Blanca

28th February 2013

Image ShearArt February