How I Built My Dream Photography Website (With a Little Help From an AI Panda)

So here's something most photographers never talk about: the website struggle. You spend hours getting the perfect shot. You edit until 2am. The costume is flawless, the lighting is chef's kiss — and then you paste it into some generic portfolio template that looks like everyone else's. Painful. I didn't want that. I wanted something that felt like me — dark, sleek, a little dramatic. So I decided to build it from scratch. With code. Now, I'm a programmer by day, so this wasn't completely out of left field — but building a full website with backend and possibility to edit everything from admin console? That's a lot. Enter Bambu — my personal AI assistant running on a dedicated Mac mini in my home. Think Jarvis, but fluffier. (It's a panda. Don't ask. Nebula.) Together we built yansimon.com over a series of late-night sessions (I mean really late). Here's what actually went into it: The cool stuff: Those smooth scrolling animations you see everywhere? That's GSAP — a professional animation library used by studios and agencies. We spent an embarrassing amount of time making sure images don't flash or glitch on load. The horizontal scroll section with my Instagram photos? That pulls fresh images automatically from Insta. One click in the admin panel and it goes and grabs my latest posts. Magic. The whole site remembers your progress if you're taking one of my courses. Your stats, your achievements — all saved. The less cool stuff: We accidentally broke the animations three times while trying to fix them. Getting Google to re-index the site after changes is basically just... waiting. And hoping. But honestly? The result is exactly what I wanted. Fast, beautiful, personal. A place where the photos can displayed and place to learn. If you're a cosplay photographer thinking about your own website — don't settle for a template. Your work deserves better. And if you ever need an AI panda to help you build it... well, I might know one. 🐼