Anchorage Menu Photography for Real Dishes

Plan the shoot around Anchorage daylight

Anchorage's light is the biggest scheduling variable. Around the June solstice you get roughly 18 h 57 min of daylight and the noon sun sits about 52 degrees above the horizon, so direct sun through a window is harsh and high for much of the day. Around the December solstice daylight drops to about 5 h 03 min and the noon sun is only about 5 degrees up, so low, raking light comes in almost horizontally and the usable window is short.

Book your batch shoot around those facts rather than around a fixed clock time. In summer, shoot early morning or late evening and use a north-facing window or a diffuser to soften the high sun. In winter, shoot late morning to early afternoon and expect to add a reflector or a second light, because the low sun gives long shadows and dim interiors.

• June: shoot before 9 a.m. or after 7 p.m., or diffuse the window
• December: block a late-morning window, add a reflector on the shadow side
• Keep one window and one camera position for the whole batch so tiles match

Batch shooting a whole menu consistently

Set up one station and one camera position, then bring dishes to it. A tripod or a fixed phone mount at the same height and distance for every plate gives you tiles that line up in a grid on a printed menu and look uniform in a delivery app list. Shoot from about 45 degrees above the plate for most items, and drop to a lower angle only for tall builds like burgers or stacked sandwiches.

Shoot in the order the kitchen can plate. Group cold items, then hot items, then desserts, so nothing sits under lights. Keep a written shot list numbered to match your menu, tick each item off, and shoot two or three frames per dish: one straight-on, one slightly closer, one detail. Overcast days are the easiest for consistent window light, so keep a flexible backup date.

• Same plate size, same background board, same camera height for every dish
• Wipe rims and re-style garnish between frames, not between dishes
• Shoot a plain background board you can swap per season, not per dish

Naming files so photos stay with the right item

A menu photo is only useful if you can find it again when a dish changes. Use a naming pattern that starts with the menu section, then the item, then the version: for example seafood-salmon-entree-v2.jpg. Avoid camera defaults like IMG_4471, which tell nobody anything six months later.

Keep one master folder per menu version and a spreadsheet or notes file that lists each item, its file name, the date shot and where it is used. When you change a recipe, a portion size or a garnish, bump the version number rather than overwriting the file. That way you can prove what the photo showed when it was published, which matters if the item carries a calorie count.

• Pattern: section-item-version.jpg
• Never overwrite a published photo, create the next version
• Log date shot and current use next to each file name

Keeping photos in sync with menu changes

Menus change more often than most kitchens re-shoot. Build a simple rule: any change to ingredients, portion, plating or price triggers a check of the photo. If the plate still matches, keep the file. If it does not, re-shoot that one item at the next batch session and update the version number everywhere it appears: printed menu, QR menu, website and delivery listings.

In the United States, restaurant chains with 20 or more locations must show calorie counts for standard menu items, and FDA guidance covers online menus as well as menu boards. A photo must match the item the calories describe, so a swapped garnish or a larger portion is a reason to re-shoot, not just a reason to edit the text.

Spec pages on this site cover Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox for the United States, so check those before you export. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen itself.

Where the photos go and how to crop them

The same real photo needs different crops for different places. A printed menu usually wants a consistent landscape or square tile, a QR menu needs something that reads on a phone at small size, and a delivery app listing shows a thumbnail that compresses heavily. Export a square 1:1 for menu grids, a 16:9 for website banners and social headers, and a tight crop for thumbnails where the dish fills most of the frame.

For Alaskan seafood and American cooking, texture is what sells the plate. Light from the side rather than straight on, so the flake of a salmon fillet and the shell of crab legs read as edges instead of flat color. Keep the crop tight enough that the protein is recognizable at thumbnail size, and leave a little space around the plate so the image survives a platform's own cropping.

• 1:1 for menu grids and QR menus
• 16:9 for website and social headers
• Tight thumbnail crop with the main ingredient centered

Building the menu in one pass

Work in passes rather than dish by dish. First shoot every best seller, because those are the items customers look for first. Then shoot the rest of the menu in section order. Finally shoot specials and seasonal items as a small separate batch, so swapping them in and out does not disturb the main set.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social, keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes. Use it for your own channels such as the printed menu, QR menu, website and Google Business Profile, and still shoot and upload your own real photos directly to each delivery platform.