Menu Photography in Hamburg: Full-Menu Consistency for Print, QR and Delivery

Plan the batch before you cook anything

List every dish that needs a photo and group it by how it is plated: cold plates first (Fischbrötchen, salads, cold starters), then hot plated dishes, then fried items, then desserts and drinks. Cold food holds its looks longer, so shoot it while the kitchen is calm. Fried food and anything with a crust should be shot last and in small batches, one or two portions at a time, so nothing sits under the lamp.

Build a shot list with one line per dish: dish name, plate or bowl used, garnish, and the angle you want. Decide the master angle once per category. A 45-degree angle suits burgers, sandwiches and bowls because it shows height and topping; a straight-on 90-degree top-down suits flat plates, pizzas and sharing platters. Keep the same angle and the same distance for every dish in a category so the menu grid reads as one set.

Book a two-hour block outside service. A full menu of 30 to 40 dishes is realistic in that window if the kitchen plates to the shot list and one person only handles the camera. Ask the kitchen to plate the dish exactly as it goes to a guest, not a styled version, because the photo has to match what arrives.

• Group by plating type: cold, hot plated, fried, desserts, drinks
• Fix one master angle per category (45 degrees for stacked food, 90 degrees top-down for flat plates)
• Shoot one or two portions per dish, never a tray that waits
• Keep the same camera distance within a category so thumbnails match

A daylight shooting schedule for Hamburg's seasons

Around the June solstice Hamburg gets about 16 h 48 min of daylight and the noon sun reaches about 60 degrees above the horizon. That high sun is harsh through a south-facing window at midday, so in summer shoot in the morning or late afternoon when light comes in lower and softer. A north-facing window gives even light all day and is the easiest spot for a full menu shoot in any month.

Around the December solstice Hamburg gets about 7 h 12 min of daylight and the noon sun reaches only about 13 degrees. The sun stays low, so window light is soft but weak and the useful window is short. In winter, plan shoots between roughly 10:00 and 14:00, put the table close to the glass, and add a white foam board opposite the window to bounce light back onto the shadow side of the plate. If the day is gray, a diffused continuous light with a large softbox gives more control than waiting for sun.

In every season, turn off ceiling mixed lighting or move away from it, because a warm tungsten overhead plus cool daylight creates two color casts on one plate. Set white balance manually against a white card at the start of the session and leave it fixed for the whole batch.

• Summer (June): avoid 11:00 to 15:00 direct sun, shoot morning or late afternoon, or use a north window
• Winter (December): shoot 10:00 to 14:00 near the glass, bounce light with a white board
• Spring and autumn: window light is usable most of the day, check the forecast the day before
• Fix white balance once per session and do not change it mid-batch

Consistent framing, backgrounds and crops across the whole menu

Choose one background and stick to it: a plain dark slate suits grilled and roasted dishes, a light wood or linen surface suits bread, pastries and cold plates. If your menu mixes both, split the backgrounds by category so the difference looks deliberate rather than accidental. Keep props minimal and identical across the batch: one set of cutlery, one napkin color, no branded items that date the photo.

Shoot each dish slightly wider than you need, with the plate centered and space around it. That extra margin lets you crop to 1:1 for delivery-app tiles and Instagram grid posts, 4:5 for feed portraits, 16:9 for website banners and print headers, without re-shooting. Keep the plate the same size within the frame for every dish in a category so the tiles do not jump between a huge burger and a tiny side.

Check every image at thumbnail size on a phone before you accept it. Delivery apps show dishes as small tiles, so a Fischbrötchen and a bowl of Labskaus must still be identifiable at roughly the width of a thumb. If two dishes look alike at that size, change the garnish or the angle for one of them.

File naming and keeping photos in sync with menu changes

Use a naming pattern that ties every file to the dish and the date: dish-name_category_YYYY-MM-DD_master.jpg, for example fischbroetchen_cold_2025-03-14_master.jpg. Keep the master file uncropped and export the platform crops as separate files with a suffix such as _1x1 or _4x5. When a dish changes recipe, price or portion, the date in the filename tells you immediately which photo is stale.

Keep a simple photo register, one row per dish: dish name, master file, date shot, platforms where it appears, and whether the recipe has changed since. Update it whenever the kitchen changes a dish. When a menu item is removed, retire its photo from the QR menu, the website and any printed reprint in the same week, so guests never order from a picture of something you no longer serve.

Seasonal and limited items are the biggest source of drift. Photograph them on the day they launch, add them to the register with a planned removal date, and re-shoot rather than reusing an old photo of a similar dish. A photo of last winter's plate under this winter's description is the kind of mismatch guests notice.

• Name files dish-name_category_date_master and export crops with size suffixes
• Keep one register row per dish with date shot and platforms used
• Retire removed dishes from QR menu, website and print at the same time
• Re-shoot seasonal items each launch instead of reusing older photos

Allergens, honest photos and platform rules

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. Keep allergen details in the menu text and QR menu, and make sure the photo does not suggest ingredients the dish does not contain, such as a garnish of nuts or a cream swirl that is not in the recipe.

Platform rules differ. Wolt does not accept AI-generated or altered images: there, the merchant uploads their own real photo. For Uber Eats, Wolt and Yelp, this site has photo spec pages covering Germany: /delivery-photo-specs/uber-eats/germany/, /delivery-photo-specs/wolt/germany/ and /delivery-photo-specs/yelp/germany/. Lieferando also operates in Germany; where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen in the merchant portal for the current requirements rather than guessing.

For the restaurant's own channels, 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. On platforms that ban AI-generated or altered images, shoot and upload your own real photo there, and use the edited versions on your website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print.