Stockholm Menu Photography: One Consistent Set for Print, QR and Apps

Plan the set before you plan the shots

List every dish and drink that will appear anywhere: printed menu, QR menu, website, delivery listings. Group items by how they are plated and lit rather than by menu order, because a cold seafood plate, a hot meat dish and a pastry behave differently in front of a camera.

Decide one master aspect ratio for the set, for example 4:3 or 1:1, and shoot everything to fill it. Wide header crops and square tiles can then be cut from the same master without re-shooting. Keep a written shot list with a fixed order so nothing is missed on the day and the kitchen knows what to prepare and when.

• One master ratio for all items, crops derived from it
• Shoot in menu-section blocks so props and surfaces stay the same
• Note dishes that will be re-shot seasonally in the list itself

Batch shooting in a Stockholm kitchen

Batch by surface and light, not by course. Set up one table near a window, one backdrop and one set of props, then bring dishes out in groups of similar height and color. A meatball plate, a herring plate and a cinnamon bun need different angles, but they should share the same background and light direction so the finished menu looks like one set.

Shoot each dish from a 45 degree angle for depth and add a straight overhead frame for flat items like open sandwiches or pastries. Keep the camera at a consistent distance, roughly an arm's length for a single plate, and use the same focal length across the whole set. A phone on a small tripod with a fixed position beats hand-holding for consistency.

Work in short blocks of six to eight dishes, then review on a laptop before the next block. Catching a focus miss or a smudged plate early saves a second prep round.

• One window, one backdrop, one light direction for the whole set
• 45 degree angle for most plates, overhead for flat items
• Review each block on a large screen before continuing

A seasonal window-light schedule for Stockholm

Stockholm's daylight swings hard across the year. Around the June solstice there are about 18 h 16 min of daylight and the noon sun sits about 54 degrees above the horizon; around the December solstice there are about 5 h 44 min and the noon sun is only about 7 degrees high. That changes when, and whether, you can shoot by a window at all.

In summer, direct sun is high and harsh and lasts late into the evening. Shoot mid-morning or late afternoon on a north-facing window, or diffuse the light with a sheer curtain, and avoid the hours when low-angle sun rakes across the table. In December, usable soft daylight is a short window around late morning; book shoots then, and expect to supplement with a plain white reflector or a continuous light bounced off a wall.

Spring and autumn give you the most forgiving light: softer, lower sun for longer stretches. Use those weeks for the biggest batch shoots, and keep summer and midwinter for smaller menu updates.

• June: mid-morning or late afternoon, north window, diffuse harsh sun
• December: short late-morning window, add reflector or bounced light
• Spring and autumn: best weeks for full-menu batch shoots

Naming, storing and syncing with menu changes

Name every file with the same pattern: dish code, short dish name, version date, for example M07-meatballs-2025-03. Never leave camera defaults like IMG_4471, because nobody can match those to a menu item six months later. Store masters in one folder per menu version and export crops into subfolders named for their destination.

Tie the photo set to the menu document. When a dish is removed or its recipe changes, the photo changes with it. A simple rule: the menu version number appears in the folder name, and no photo goes live until its dish name and version match the current menu.

Allergen information must be available before a delivery purchase is concluded under EU Regulation 1169/2011, and photos never replace that text. Keep the two in the same update cycle so a new photo never arrives with outdated allergen notes, and make sure a styled shot does not suggest an ingredient the dish does not contain.

• Use dish code, name and version date in every filename
• One folder per menu version, subfolders per destination
• Retire a photo the moment its dish leaves the menu

Sizes, crops and platform rules

From each master you need a square crop for grid tiles, a wider crop for headers and a portrait crop for social. Check each platform's own upload screen for current pixel requirements: this site publishes spec pages for Uber Eats in Sweden and Wolt in Sweden, and those pages are the place to start. Where a platform does not publish pixel specs, check the upload screen itself.

Wolt do not accept AI-generated or altered images. If you list there, shoot and upload your own real photo of the dish and do not pass anything else off as the item. The same caution applies anywhere a listing must represent the food as served.

For your own channels, a real photo of your dish can be improved in light, background and crop while the food stays as it is. FoodPhoto does that and returns each photo as a kit of sizes for a website menu, Instagram, a QR menu and print, so one shoot covers every surface you control.

Keeping the set usable over a year

A menu photo set decays quietly. Seasonal dishes come and go, plating changes, a new chef adjusts a garnish. Schedule two review points a year, one before the spring batch shoot and one in late autumn, and check every photo against the live menu.

Keep the raw masters. A dish that returns next season can be re-cropped rather than re-shot, and a photo that was fine for print can be recut for a square tile. Archive rather than delete, with the folder version intact.