Motorcycle photojournalist Neale Bayly’s unconventional path to fulfillment set the tone for a delightful conversation with Aidan Sullivan, Vice President of Photo Assignment for Getty Images, on Day 2 (Thursday, February 11) of the Xposure International Photography Festival currently being held at Expo Centre Sharjah.

The conversation, exploring the two-time award-winning television producer-host’s ‘Philanthropic Motorcycle Adventure’, centred on how Bayly’smotorcycling adventures transformed into a life-long journey of raising funds and awareness for abandoned children of the Hogar Belen orphanage in Peru through the Wellspring International Outreach that he founded in 2008.

Growing up in the UK, “I was actively engaged in a fundraising campaign – inspired by a television show – that saw me enthusiastically go about collecting materials for recycling to raise money for African farming projects. Although I grew up as a child raised on welfare, it was the television show that first introduced me to where real hardships lie.”

The childhood passion for motorcycles, he adds, became a life-changing force when he read Jupiter’s Travels: Four Years Around the World on a Triumph, a pivotal book by Ted Simon that described his extraordinary travel through 45 countries in four years crisscrossing 78,000 miles on a two-wheeler.

“This seminal book influenced a whole generation of travellers, and I was one of them,”Bayly told the Xposure 2021 audience, adding how the book, together with the television show that embodied the spirit of doing good for the less fortunate were to eventually shape his life and career.

Describing the days of his youth when he fell into wrong company and traded money on the black market in war-torn Nicaragua to fund the purchase of a bike, Baylyrevealed that it was on a motorcycle adventure ride through Peru in 1995 that he “met the man who was instrumental in changing my life’s direction.”

He said: “Father Giovanni was the founder of the Hogar Belen orphanage, and I soon learned about his work with the poor and needy in this remote part of the country.”

Bayly’s journey as a humanitarian commenced following the death of Father Gio when he undertook a trip to arrange medical care for the children of the orphanage. “I was instantly drawn to young Cathleen, one of the400 children there, and the connection we shared was to change my life forever,” he said.

His goal, through Wellspring, “is to build a new home and a secure future for these children in need,” he said.

In 2013, his show “Neale Bayly Rides”, featured a group of off-road novices turning into full-fledged adventure riders on a trip through the rough terrains of Peru as they made their way to the Hogar Belen orphanage on a fund-raising trip.

“I would like to do the same here in the Middle East, and at Xposure 2021, I have been fortunate to witness many critical causes that photographers around the world are devoting their attention to, and even risking their lives for. Together, we could all join hands to impact more lives and draw attention to more needy causes,”he concluded.