Restaurant Photography in Vancouver: What to Shoot and When

The photo set a Vancouver restaurant actually needs

Most restaurants shoot one dish and stop. A venue needs a small, repeatable set: a signature dish hero, three to five supporting dishes that show range, one wide room shot, one exterior shot that shows the entrance and signage from the street, and two or three frames of the team at work. The room and exterior shots matter more than owners expect because Google Business Profile and map listings surface them to people deciding whether to walk in.

For a seafood or sushi counter, shoot nigiri and sashimi close and side-on so the cut and rice are readable. For Cantonese seafood served whole, shoot from a slight angle above so the plate shape and garnish read, and include one frame with a hand lifting a portion to show scale. For izakaya small plates, group three or four dishes in one frame rather than shooting each alone, because the appeal is the spread. For farm-to-table West Coast plates, shoot at a lower angle to show height and layering.

Keep the same background and surface across the dish set. A consistent light wood board or dark slate across ten dishes looks like a menu; ten different backgrounds look like ten different restaurants.

• One hero dish, shot straight on and from 45 degrees above
• Three to five supporting dishes that show the range of the menu
• One wide room shot from a corner, at eye level
• One exterior shot from across the street, showing signage
• Two or three frames of hands plating, pouring or serving

Seasonal window-light schedule for Vancouver

Vancouver's daylight swings hard between solstices, so the same window that floods a table at noon in June is dim in December. Around the June solstice the city gets about 16 h 02 min of daylight and the noon sun reaches about 64 degrees above the horizon. Around the December solstice it gets about 7 h 58 min and the noon sun reaches about 17 degrees.

In summer, the high noon sun is harsh and throws short, hard shadows. Shoot window-lit dishes in the morning between roughly 9 and 11, or in the late afternoon after 4, when light comes in lower and softer. Avoid the noon window entirely for plated food. For room shots, the long evening light after 7 pm gives warm, even fill.

In winter, the low noon sun comes almost horizontally through south-facing windows, which can be beautiful for room shots but creates long shadows across a plate. Shoot dishes between about 11 am and 1 pm when the sun is at its highest, and use a window that faces north or is shaded by a building across the street for softer, more even light. Winter daylight is short, so book the shoot between 10 am and 2 pm and plan the whole set inside that window.

In spring and fall the sun sits between those extremes, so a mid-morning to early-afternoon slot works for both dishes and room. Check the weather the day before: an overcast Vancouver day gives soft, diffuse light that is easier for food than direct sun, but you will need a reflector or a white foam board to bounce light back onto the shadow side of the plate.

Planning the shoot around service

The best food photos are shot before the kitchen gets busy. Book a slot between 10 am and 11:30 am for lunch service, or between 2:30 pm and 4:30 pm for dinner service, when the line is calm and the chef can plate for the camera. Ask the kitchen to prepare one extra portion of each dish specifically for the shoot so nothing is held under a heat lamp.

Shoot the room before opening or after close, when tables are set but no guests are seated. For the exterior, shoot in the late afternoon or early evening when the signage is lit and the street has some life, but before the dinner rush fills the frame with people. Team shots work best during a quiet prep period, with hands and tools in frame rather than posed faces.

Build a shot list by course and by platform. Decide which dishes go to the website hero, which go to Google Business Profile, and which go to delivery apps, so the kitchen plates each one once with the right crop in mind.

Google Business Profile and listing photos

Google Business Profile shows a mix of exterior, interior, food and team photos, and diners use them to judge whether a place matches the description. Upload the exterior shot first, because it answers the most common question: what does the entrance look like from the street. Follow with one wide room shot and three to five dish photos that match the cuisine you are known for.

Keep the listing photos current. If the menu changes seasonally, replace the dish photos that no longer exist. Google does not publish pixel specs for Business Profile photos in a single public page, so check the upload screen for the current size guidance before you export.

For delivery apps, our spec pages cover Uber Eats, DoorDash, BentoBox, Olo, Ritual, Square Online, Toast and Yelp for Canada, and each page lists the image sizes and rules for that platform. Check the relevant page before you upload, because a photo cropped for a website hero will not fit a delivery app tile. Skip and SkipTheDishes also operate in Canada; check their upload screens for current specs.

Editing and where each photo goes

A dish photo for the website hero should be cropped wide, around 16:9, and show the plate with some room around it for text overlay. A delivery app tile is usually square, around 1:1, and should be cropped tight to the food so it reads on a small phone screen. Instagram favors a 4:5 portrait crop for feed posts. Export each dish in all three crops from the same original frame.

Correct exposure and white balance before cropping. Vancouver's winter light is cool and blue, so a plate shot near a window can look gray; warm it slightly so the food looks like it did in the kitchen. Do not saturate greens and reds beyond what the dish actually looked like, because diners notice when the plate arrives duller than the photo.

FoodPhoto takes a real photo of the restaurant's own dish and improves light, background and crop for menus, delivery apps and social while keeping the food as it is, and every photo comes as a kit of sizes. Use it for the restaurant's own channels such as the website menu, Instagram, Google Business Profile, a QR menu and print.