Seattle Restaurant Photography: A Working Guide for WA Restaurants

Plan your shoots around Seattle's daylight

Seattle gets about 15 hours 47 minutes of daylight near the June solstice, with the noon sun about 66 degrees above the horizon. Near the December solstice that drops to about 8 hours 13 minutes and the noon sun sits only about 19 degrees up. High summer sun sends light steeply through windows and onto tables; low winter sun comes in almost horizontally and reaches deep into the room.

That means the same window is a different light source in June and December. In summer, shoot mid-morning or late afternoon when the sun is off your shooting wall, or diffuse the window with a white curtain. In winter, the low sun can rake across a plate for hours, so pick a window that faces away from the sun and use the bright but indirect light it gives you.

A practical seasonal schedule: from May through August, book shoots between 9 and 11 a.m. or after 4 p.m. so you avoid the steep midday beam. From November through February, the useful window is roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., but only on the side of the building facing away from the sun. In the shoulder months, watch the forecast and shoot on bright overcast days, which give soft, even light all day.

• Summer: shoot early morning or late afternoon, never straight into the steep noon sun
• Winter: use indirect light from a window facing away from the sun, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Overcast days in spring and fall are the easiest light of the year for plates
• Set white balance manually on a gray card so the same dish looks the same in every shot

Build a shot list that fits Seattle's food

Seattle cooking leans on seafood, shellfish, and Pacific Northwest ingredients alongside strong Asian restaurant traditions. Those dishes photograph differently. Raw oysters and shellfish need a low, slightly side-on angle so you see the shell's depth and the shine on the meat, and they need to be shot fast before they dry. Noodles and rice bowls read better from about 45 degrees above the table, which shows the toppings and the bowl rim at once.

For a composed plate with height, such as a piece of grilled fish on greens, get the camera close to plate level, around 10 to 20 degrees above the surface, so the stack of food is visible. For flat items like a sandwich, a burger, or a plate of grilled skewers, a straight-on side view at plate height shows the layers. Keep one consistent angle per menu category so the menu looks like a set.

Shoot the dish as it actually goes out. If the kitchen adds a lemon wedge or a side of pickles, include it, because the photo has to match what the customer receives.

• Oysters and shellfish: low side angle, shoot within a minute of plating
• Noodle and rice bowls: about 45 degrees above the table
• Grilled fish and stacked plates: 10 to 20 degrees above plate level
• Sandwiches and skewers: straight-on at plate level to show layers

Keep photos honest for delivery apps and calorie menus

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. If your listing shows a photo of a larger portion than the standard item, or a version with extra sides, the image no longer matches the labeled item.

That rule applies whether you run one location or many, but it matters most for multi-unit operators and anyone publishing calorie data online. Shoot the standard portion as specified in your recipe, on the plate or in the container the customer gets, and note which items have variations. If a dish comes in two sizes, photograph both and label them clearly.

Delivery containers change how a dish reads. A bowl of soup in a clear-lidded container looks flat from above, so shoot it at an angle that shows the depth of the liquid and the garnish on top. Test one photo in the actual container before you shoot the whole menu.

Sizing photos for each platform

Delivery apps, Google Business Profile, your website, and social all crop differently. A wide hero shot for your website will lose its edges when cropped to a square or a vertical phone screen, so frame the dish with space around it and keep the key elements near the center.

This site publishes spec pages for Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and BentoBox covering the United States. Those pages are the place to check current requirements before a shoot. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen in your merchant dashboard, since that is the version you actually have to satisfy.

For your own channels, a simple set works: a square 1:1 for grid posts and menu tiles, a vertical 4:5 or 9:16 for stories and phone menus, and a wide 16:9 for your website header and Google Business Profile cover. Export each from the same original frame rather than cropping a small file repeatedly.

• Check this site's Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, and BentoBox spec pages for US requirements
• If a platform publishes no pixel specs, confirm on the upload screen in your dashboard
• Frame with margin so square and vertical crops keep the whole dish
• Export 1:1, 4:5 or 9:16, and 16:9 from the original file

Lighting and gear for small Seattle kitchens

You do not need a studio. One window, a white foam board as a bounce on the shadow side, and a sheet of baking parchment taped over the glass as a diffuser will handle most plates. Put the plate about 60 to 90 cm from the window so the light wraps rather than hits hard, and use the bounce to lift the dark side by one or two stops.

Turn off overhead fluorescent or mixed-color bulbs and turn off the camera flash. Mixed light sources are the main reason phone photos of food look orange on one side and green on the other. If the room is too dark in winter, raise the ISO and steady the phone on a stack of menus or a small tripod rather than opening the aperture on a phone that cannot do it.

Shoot on a surface that suits the dish: dark slate for pale seafood, light wood for dark sauces and grilled items. Keep the background simple and consistent across the menu so the food is the only thing that changes.

A repeatable workflow for menu updates

Seasonal menus change, and so should the photos. Set a rhythm: shoot new dishes on the day they are finalized, reshoot any item whose portion or plating changed, and retire photos of dishes you no longer serve. Keep the raw files in a folder named by date and menu cycle so you can find the original when a platform asks for a different crop.

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. Each photo comes as a kit of sizes, which covers your website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu, and print. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always check the current upload requirements yourself.

Checklist before you publish