Vancouver Restaurant Photography: A Practical Guide for BC Restaurants

Shoot by the sun, not by the clock

Vancouver's daylight swings from roughly 16 hours at the June solstice to about 8 hours at the December solstice, and the noon sun sits about 64 degrees high in June but only about 17 degrees in December. That means summer light is overhead and harsh by midday, while winter light stays low and raking for most of the day.

Build your shooting schedule around that. In summer, use a north-facing window and shoot between mid-morning and late afternoon, when the sun is high and indirect light through the glass stays soft. Avoid a south or west window at midday in June; the sun is nearly overhead and will blow out glossy sauces. In winter, the low sun comes almost horizontally through south and west windows, which gives long, dramatic shadows. Either diffuse it with a sheet of parchment or white foam board, or shoot earlier and later when the angle softens.

• June: north window, mid-morning to late afternoon, diffusion only if highlights clip
• December: south or west window at midday gives low raking light; add a white bounce card opposite the window
• Equinox months: light changes fastest, so shoot your full menu in one block rather than spreading it over weeks
• Overcast days are your friend in Vancouver: cloud cover is a giant softbox, so keep a backup shoot day for rain

A dish-by-dish shooting plan

What you shoot changes how you light it. Broths and soups, common in the city's Asian restaurant kitchens, read best with a low camera angle around 20 to 30 degrees so you see the surface and the bowl rim, lit from the side to catch steam and gloss. Stacked items like burgers, sandwiches or layered cakes need a straight-on angle at eye level, roughly 0 degrees, with the light slightly behind and above to separate the layers.

Flat dishes, pizza and platters want a top-down shot at 90 degrees with even, shadowless light. For anything with height, a 45-degree angle is the safe default. Keep the camera 40 to 60 cm from the plate so the dish fills the frame without wide-angle distortion, and shoot each dish at 1:1 for social and 16:9 for hero banners.

Shoot on a plain surface that matches your brand: a dark slate for rich braises, a light wood or marble for bright salads and desserts. Keep the same surface and background across the whole menu so the delivery listing looks like one restaurant, not five.

Sizing photos for delivery apps and your own channels

Delivery platforms control their own crop and compression, and most do not publish exact pixel specs. Check the upload screen in each partner dashboard before you export, and keep a generous margin around the plate so a square or vertical crop does not cut off the dish. This site has spec pages for Uber Eats, DoorDash, BentoBox, Olo, Ritual, Square Online, Toast and Yelp in Canada; read the one for the platform you are uploading to, and treat it as a starting point rather than a guarantee.

For your own channels you have full control. Use 16:9 for a website hero, 1:1 or 4:5 for Instagram feed posts, and a tall 9:16 for stories and reels covers. Google Business Profile photos should be bright and sharp at whatever size you upload, and printed menus need the highest resolution you have, so keep the original file.

Keep one master folder per dish with the original plus the crops, named by dish and date. When a dish changes, you know exactly which files to replace.

Keep the listing honest and consistent

The photo on the delivery app, the photo on your website and the plate that arrives at the door should match. If a dish is served with a side, show the side. If the portion changes seasonally, reshoot rather than reuse an old image. Diners compare the app photo to what lands on the table, and mismatches show up in reviews faster than almost anything else.

Where a platform bans AI-generated images, shoot and upload your own real photo of the dish to that platform. Do not label any image as ready for a specific platform unless that platform has told you so.

Canadian menus are commonly written in English and French. If you print a bilingual menu, shoot each dish once and reuse the same photo across both language versions so the layout stays consistent.

Note that Ontario's Healthy Menu Choices Act, 2015 requires food service businesses with 20 or more locations there to display calories for standard menu items. That rule applies in Ontario, not BC, but if you operate across provinces, keep your photo and nutrition records aligned.

A quarterly refresh routine

Set a rhythm so photos never go stale. Every quarter, list your ten best-selling dishes and your five newest ones, and check each against the current photo. Reshoot anything that has changed portion, plating or garnish.

Seasonal menus need their own shoot day. In Vancouver, spring and fall produce turn over quickly, so book a half-day window shoot when the new menu is finalized, not after it launches.

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 your website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, QR menu and print, and upload your own real shots directly to any delivery platform.