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Menu Photography in Dublin: Shooting a Full Menu Consistently

A Dublin menu is photographed for at least four places at once: the printed card, a QR menu, delivery apps and your own website. The hard part is not one good photo, it is forty dishes that look like they came from the same kitchen on the same day. This guide covers a seasonal window-light schedule for Dublin, a batch shooting order, file naming, and how to keep images matching the menu after every change.

Plan the shoot around Dublin daylight

Dublin swings from roughly 16 h 45 min of daylight at the June solstice to about 7 h 15 min in December, and the noon sun drops from about 60 degrees above the horizon to about 13 degrees. That changes everything about window light: in summer you get hard, high light that throws short shadows and blows out white plates; in winter the light comes in almost horizontally, so it rakes across the food and casts long shadows toward the camera.

Set a fixed shooting window rather than shooting whenever the kitchen is quiet. A workable pattern is mid-morning to early afternoon in summer, when the sun is already high and you can bounce it off a white wall or a sheet of foam board placed opposite the window. In winter, shoot closer to midday and put the bounce card behind the camera, not beside the dish, or the low sun will edge-light the plate and leave the near side dark.

Indoors, a north-facing window gives the most even light all year. If your only window faces south or west, tape a sheet of baking parchment to the glass to soften summer sun, and move the table back from the window in winter so the light spreads rather than hitting one side of the plate.

  • June: shoot 10:00 to 14:00, bounce light from the opposite wall, watch for blown highlights on white plates
  • December: shoot 11:30 to 14:00, keep the bounce behind the camera, expect longer exposures and use a tripod
  • Overcast days are the easiest: the whole sky becomes a softbox, so batch your shoot when the forecast is grey
  • Keep the same table position and camera height for every dish so the set looks consistent

Batch shooting order for a full menu

Shoot in groups that share lighting and styling, not in menu order. Start with cold, matte dishes such as salads, cheese boards and desserts, because they hold their shape. Move to hot plates, then to anything that melts or wilts, and finish with drinks, which need different glassware and often a darker background.

Work at a consistent camera angle. A 45-degree angle suits burgers, sandwiches, stews and most pub plates because it shows both the top and the side. A straight overhead 90-degree shot works for pizzas, sharing boards and flat-lay spreads. Reserve a low 20 to 30-degree angle for tall items such as stacked burgers or pints, where you want to show height. Pick one angle per menu category and stick to it.

Keep the dish close to the frame edge in camera and leave breathing room, because delivery tiles crop hard to squares. Shoot each dish in landscape and again in a square framing so you have both without reframing later.

  • Cold and matte first, hot plates second, melting and wilting items last
  • One camera angle per category, recorded on a shot list before you start
  • Shoot each dish landscape and square, plus one close detail of texture
  • Wipe the plate rim before every frame and keep a cloth and water spray on the table

File naming and keeping the set organized

Name files the way your menu is organized, not the way your camera does. A pattern like category_dish-name_version works: mains_beef-stew_2024-06. Keep dish names identical to the wording on the menu and on the delivery platform, so nobody has to guess which photo belongs to which listing.

Store one master folder with the original files and a second folder of exports sized for each use. Never overwrite a master. When a dish changes, add a new version rather than editing the old file, so you can roll back if the new shot is worse.

Keep a simple spreadsheet with columns for dish name, menu section, allergen notes, photo file name, date shot and where it is published. That sheet is the single place to check when the menu changes.

  • Use lowercase, hyphens instead of spaces, and no special characters
  • Include a date or version number in every file name
  • Keep originals untouched in a master folder, exports in a separate folder
  • Log every photo in one spreadsheet with its dish name and publication locations

Matching photos to menu changes

Menus change more often than photo shoots happen. Build a rule: any new dish gets photographed before it goes live on a delivery app, and any dish whose recipe or portion changes gets re-shot. Seasonal specials can be shot in a short batch at the start of each season rather than one at a time.

When a dish leaves the menu, remove its photo from the delivery platform the same day. A photo of a dish customers cannot order is worse than no photo. The same applies to printed menus: if the photo stays but the price or description changes, reprint or re-stick the panel rather than leaving a mismatch.

For QR menus, keep the image files on your own server or menu system with fixed file names, so replacing a photo does not break the link behind the QR code.

Delivery app specs, allergens and honesty

Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat and Toast each have their own image requirements, and this site keeps spec pages for all four: /delivery-photo-specs/uber-eats/ireland/, /delivery-photo-specs/deliveroo/ireland/, /delivery-photo-specs/just-eat/ireland/ and /delivery-photo-specs/toast/ireland/. Check those pages and the upload screen in your partner dashboard before you export, because platform requirements change and the upload screen is the final authority.

Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, allergen information for the 14 regulated allergens must be available for food sold without packaging, and for distance selling including delivery apps the mandatory information must be available before the purchase is concluded. A photo never replaces that information, and it should not suggest ingredients the dish does not contain. If you garnish a dish for the shoot with something that is not served, you are creating a mismatch that matters for allergen disclosure.

For your own channels, the printed menu, website, Instagram, Google Business Profile and QR menu, you can standardize on one master image per dish and export the sizes you need. FoodPhoto takes a real photo of your own dish and improves light, background and crop for your own channels (website menu, Instagram, QR menu and print), keeping the food as it is; on Deliveroo, follow its photo policy and upload your own real photo. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always check each app's current requirements yourself.

A repeatable quarterly routine

Treat menu photography as maintenance, not an event. Once a quarter, pull the spreadsheet, compare it to the live menu on every platform, and list dishes with missing, outdated or inconsistent photos. Book one batch shoot for that list, shoot in the same spot with the same angles, rename and log the files, then update every channel in one sitting.

Dublin's daylight makes spring and autumn the easiest windows for a long batch day, with summer for early starts and winter for short midday sessions. Whichever you choose, keep the setup identical so the next batch blends with the last.

Checklist before you publish

  1. Write a shot list by category before the shoot day
  2. Choose a window position and bounce setup you can repeat in every season
  3. Fix one camera angle per menu category and note it on the shot list
  4. Shoot each dish landscape and square in the same session
  5. Name files with category, dish and date, and keep originals untouched
  6. Log every photo in a spreadsheet with its publication locations
  7. Check each delivery platform's upload screen before exporting
  8. Remove photos of discontinued dishes the day they leave the menu

Questions

What camera angle should I use for menu photos?

Use a 45-degree angle for burgers, sandwiches, stews and most plated mains, a straight overhead 90-degree shot for pizzas and sharing boards, and a low 20 to 30-degree angle only for tall stacked items. Pick one angle per menu category and keep it for every dish in that category so the set looks consistent.

When is the best time of year to shoot menu photos in Dublin?

Spring and autumn give the most forgiving window light for a long batch day. In June the sun is about 60 degrees above the horizon at noon and daylight lasts around 16 h 45 min, so shoot mid-morning to early afternoon and bounce light off the opposite wall. In December the noon sun is only about 13 degrees high with roughly 7 h 15 min of daylight, so shoot close to midday and keep the bounce card behind the camera.

How do I keep photos in sync when my menu changes?

Keep one spreadsheet listing each dish, its photo file name, the date it was shot and every place it is published. Re-shoot any new dish before it goes live, re-shoot dishes whose recipe or portion changes, and delete photos of discontinued dishes from delivery apps and QR menus the same day. Use fixed file names on your own site so replacing an image does not break QR links.

Can a photo replace allergen information on a menu?

No. Under EU Regulation 1169/2011, information on the 14 regulated allergens must be available for food sold without packaging, and for distance selling including delivery apps the mandatory information must be available before the purchase is concluded. Photos are marketing, not allergen disclosure, and a photo should not show ingredients the dish does not contain.

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