Menu Photography in New Orleans: A Consistent Full-Menu Shoot

Plan the shoot around New Orleans daylight

Window light is the cheapest consistent light source you have, but in New Orleans it swings hard across the year. Around the June solstice the city gets about 13 h 56 min of daylight and the noon sun sits about 83 degrees above the horizon, which throws short, harsh shadows and pushes bright light deep into the room. Around the December solstice you get about 10 h 04 min and a noon sun about 37 degrees up, so light comes in low and long and the useful window is much shorter.

That gives you two different shooting schedules. In late spring and summer, shoot between roughly 9 and 11 a.m. or after 3 p.m., when the sun is off the window face or softened by a sheer; never at noon. In late fall and winter, the low sun works in your favor: aim for mid-morning to early afternoon and let the low angle rake across the table, which gives texture to crusts, fried coatings and glazed surfaces. Book the same window and the same table for every batch so the light in the final set matches.

• Summer: 9 to 11 a.m. or after 3 p.m., sheer on the glass, no direct noon sun
• Winter: mid-morning through early afternoon, low sun used as side light
• Shoot a white card or napkin in the first frame of each batch as a reference for color

Batch the menu by how dishes behave on camera

Do not shoot in menu order. Group dishes by how they photograph so you can set up once and move fast. Fried and breaded items such as po' boys, fried seafood and beignets want to be shot within a couple of minutes of plating, because steam softens the crust and the surface goes flat. Gumbo, bisques and stews are the opposite: they sit well, but they need a low angle and a garnish placed at the last second so the surface does not look like a flat pool.

Build four or five batches: fried and breaded, bowls and stews, plated seafood and grill items, salads and cold plates, and drinks including cocktails. Shoot each batch in one sitting of 60 to 90 minutes. Keep a written shot list per batch with the exact menu item name beside each frame number, so the person editing later does not have to guess which plate is which.

• One batch per cooking station where possible, so the kitchen is not disrupted twice
• Two or three frames per dish: one overhead, one at roughly 45 degrees, one close crop
• Wipe the plate rim before every frame; a single smear reads as dirt at thumbnail size

Shoot for the crop, not just the plate

The same photo has to survive a square delivery tile, a wide 16:9 hero on your website and a tall Instagram frame. Compose with the dish centered and leave breathing room on all four sides, so a square or 16:9 crop does not cut the edge of the plate or the garnish. A 45-degree angle is the safest master frame because it reads well in both square and wide crops; the overhead is best kept for bowls, pizzas and shared platters.

Shoot close enough that the food fills most of the frame. A dish photographed from a meter away becomes a speck in a delivery tile. Keep the background simple: a bare wood table, a folded linen, one prop at most. Busy backgrounds and cluttered tables disappear into noise at small sizes.

For platform-specific dimensions, this site has spec pages covering Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub and BentoBox for the United States, at /delivery-photo-specs/uber-eats/united-states/, /delivery-photo-specs/doordash/united-states/, /delivery-photo-specs/grubhub/united-states/ and /delivery-photo-specs/bentobox/united-states/. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, the spec page says so; check the upload screen in your merchant dashboard for the current requirement before you export.

Name files so the menu and the photo stay in sync

File names are the only reliable link between a photo and a menu item once the shoot is over. Use a pattern that carries the item name, the menu section and a version date, for example `gumbo-cup-entrees-2025-03.jpg`. Lowercase, hyphens, no spaces and no accents keep files portable across systems. Keep the original camera or phone file untouched in a folder called `originals` and export working copies into `web`, `print` and `social` folders.

When a dish changes, change the version date rather than overwriting the old file. That way, if a printed menu still shows the previous plating, you can tell which photo belongs to which print run. Keep a simple spreadsheet with columns for menu item, section, latest file name, date shot and where it is used: website, QR menu, printed menu, delivery apps. Anyone on staff can then check whether a photo is current.

• Pattern: item-section-YYYY-MM.extension
• Never overwrite; bump the date and archive the old export
• One spreadsheet row per menu item, listing every place the photo appears

Keeping photos current with menu changes

Set a monthly review, not an annual reshoot. Walk the menu section by section and flag anything where the portion, garnish, bread, side or plating has changed since the photo was taken. A photo that shows a different plate from what the kitchen sends out is a complaint waiting to happen, and in the United States, chains with 20 or more locations must show calorie counts for standard menu items, with FDA guidance covering online menus as well as menu boards. A photo has to match the item the calories describe, so a plating change can force a photo change.

When you add a special, shoot it the same day it goes on. Ten minutes at the pass with the same window light and the same angle keeps the new item consistent with the rest of the set. If a dish is removed, pull its photo from the website, QR menu and delivery listings the same week, so no customer orders from an image of something you no longer serve.

For the restaurant's own channels, a photo tool can help keep that set consistent. 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. It cannot guarantee approval by any platform, so always check each app's upload screen yourself.

Printed menus, QR menus and delivery tiles from one shoot

Print and screen need different files from the same frame. For a printed menu, export at the size the printer asks for and check the image at 100 percent for sharpness on the crust and garnish. For a QR menu, keep files small enough to load quickly on a phone on cellular data, and test the QR page on an actual phone in the dining room before you print the codes. For delivery apps, export the square and follow the spec page for that platform.

Menus in the United States are commonly written in English and Spanish, so if you run bilingual menus, shoot one frame per dish that works for both language versions rather than reshooting for each. The photo carries the dish; the text carries the language. Keep the master file and the export versions in the same folder structure so a menu update never means hunting for an image.