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Photoessay: Gurney Bay, Penang.
- yzhensiang
- Oct 25
- 3 min read
When Gurney Bay Penang first opened in February 2024, it was the city’s next big thing — a RM247 million luxurious waterfront development with a children’s play area, skate park, viewing deck, and promenade. It sounded like a perfect up and coming photo spot. But when I finally visited, I found myself struggling a little more than expected.
It’s a park that feels rather flat on the surface level. Both literally and visually. The minimalistic aesthetic leaves little depth to play with, and as a photographer, that’s not exactly ideal. Unless, you are shooting from the sky—a drone shot. While the initiative is commendable covering the tracks of the receeding seawater, the lack of maintenance in certain areas has started to show even just weeks after the official launch, creating small eyesores here and there. Putting that aside, I still wanted to give it a fair shot.
I’ve visited Gurney Bay a few times, hoping it would grow on me, but it never quite did. In contrast, the Esplanade (which I wrote about here) feels so much more alive and grounded in history. Gurney Bay feels new and empty — like a space still searching for its own soul.
This time, I decided to slow things down. I brought along my Canon 5DSR paired with the Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 and Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro, and deliberately packed a tripod. I wanted to experiment — to see if changing the way I worked could change the way I saw the space.
Despite its age, the 45mm tilt-shift lens renders beautifully. The colours are rich and natural with the ability to bend the depth of field if you hope to. Though, Chromatic aberration is something you need to be cautious of, it can be a real issue on high-contrast edges — especially between the trees and sky in the background. But it is still correctable in Lightroom.
The highlight of the yield from the morning was definitely catching the waning crescent moon and Venus glowing softly in the dawn sky. Moments like that remind me why I enjoy shooting early — when light still feels delicate, and the city slowly awakens
I also spent some time experimenting with different compositions technique by excluding the majority of the distractions and adding depth using movable elements—in this case, humans, birds, clouds, and nature. Ultimately, creating frames with depth from a space that doesn’t naturally offer it. One sequence in the particular set that I shot on tripod stood out because of how fast the clouds drift across the frame within 35 seconds. Despite being such a short time frame, the movement of the clouds was enough to throw the compositional balance off completely.
Remember to always check all the elements and reframe if necessary. Thankfully I could settle down for the middle frame without much compromise. Otherwise, we will need to settle for post-blending to fix the position of the clouds, which I have no intention to do. (As I always try to keep my frames as it is, keeping the authenticity).
There is also a particular frame that I caught before wrapping which I found rather interesting. It was a frame of a child playing at the playground — then sprinting off towards the sunlight suddenly. It felt symbolic, almost like an escape from an urban trap (the playground being the illusion of good and easy life that urban setting gave us). Maybe that’s what Gurney Bay represents right now: a space still learning to breathe.
Checkout the entire gallery from that morning here.
For those who are interested in POV-style video, do head over to my Youtube channel for a video with caption of my thought process for this photowalk under my 1 Minute Behind the Lens series. And for those who are interested in fine art prints. Do visit here for more.
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