I am genuinely having so much fun on Substack, like, actually. (If you’re finding me for the first time this week — hi! — I’m a professional photographer, and I live in Sag Harbor. Read more about me in post No. 0001)

Today, let’s do photos first. Why not!?

And now: How I solve my midnight freakouts.

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Everyone asks me this when they find out I’m a photographer: Do you hate AI? Does it freak you out? Don’t you just feel like the best to ignore AI with confidence? (Well, as a woman, please don’t ignore it, or women will be left out of the boardrooms determining our futures. Read more about this reality in my friend Patricia Assui Reed’s latest excellent post (here).

No, I’m not afraid. I’m not threatened. I’m not even annoyed.

The speed at which our culture is changing around us to be AI-native is genuinely jarring to me — I won’t pretend otherwise.

Over the last six months, I’ve turned my healthy curiosity about AI into a self-directed research project.

Here’s the part people don’t always know about me: every single one of my many hats sits on top of a head with ADHD.

And some essential adulting things were simply never attainable to me before.

Ways of organizing myself.

Ways to finish a task before I burn out on it, got frustrated, and turned that frustration inward.

Ways of feeling things too deeply and letting those feelings cloud my judgments and reactions. (Midnight freakout #1!)

After experimenting (a lot!) I have found a few totally rad AI tools, and honestly, things that felt impossible are now often within reach. That’s not a small thing. That’s a life-altering upgrade-thing.

Here are three ways I use AI every single day to feel more in control and capable of managing my busy life.

1. For me, procrastination is seldom laziness. It’s the feeling that a task requires more time than I have right now — and probably more than I’ll have later — which activates a very special flavor of ADHD stress spiral.

So I talk instead of typing.

I’m a fast typer, but that’s not the point. The point is, I can ramble into my phone while I’m watching my toddler, while I’m driving, at midnight when I’m spiraling about everything I didn’t finish. (Midnight freakout #2!)

Run-on sentences, bad grammar, total chaos — it doesn’t matter. I end up with something started. And something started is everything.

Dictation works for writing. It works for to-do lists. It especially works for the midnight freakout list, which is a real genre in my life. I’m not going to remember which undone thing needs to happen first. So, my Substack draft is due Wednesday, and I haven’t started. My camera kit needs to be packed for Thursday. I need to sweep the next four weeks of client bookings and confirm deposits and details. Summarize that into action items, add to calendar — done. I can sleep.

Dictation gets the thing out of my head and into a shape I can work with. That’s so helpful, so DIFFERENT. It’s a thrill. I used it to start writing THIS POST. At 3 a.m. while driving my baby back to sleep after a night terror, I opened my app and started just talking, by saying, “I want to write about how my AI fascination has changed my life, and I’m going to ramble on until a thesis forms.” My midnight freakout turned into a midnight productivity moment.

Once I get going, I talk in circles and tangents — but somewhere in the blah-blah, a real idea always surfaces.

2. This one is a pivot into my inner world, but it might be the most useful thing in my life right now.

I have a client who responded to my pricing as if I’d personally insulted them. I need to write back professionally. But I am, in fact, kind of insulted. So I brain-dump the situation — what happened, what I need to say, what I cannot say — and ask for a professional edit. What comes back has all the necessary information, but none of my feelings. I don’t sound pissed. I don’t sound like a pushover. I sound like someone running a business.

I’m realizing that I’ve wasted countless hours micromanaging my own emotional landscape in professional settings, without realizing it.

I am a chronic people-pleaser in writing. Left to my own devices, uncomfortable emails become a series of “so sorry, no worries, totally fine, I can wait” — even when I cannot wait and it is not fine. AI just… removes all of that. What’s left is an email that actually moves things forward. I get the booking I want at the rate I know I’m worth, or the clean exit I’m relieved by, without three days of emotional labor to get there.

3. Okay, this one is a little different, but stay with me.

I’m in the middle of a bathroom renovation, and it’s going too quickly for a designer to get involved. BUT! If I drop a photo of the empty room, the mirror I like, and the tile I like into an AI tool, I can see what it might look like together.

It’s not perfect. It’s not going to look like a spread in Architectural Digest. But I get to iterate. I get to be the creative in a moment where otherwise I’d just be guessing — or worse, deferring to someone else’s vision.

That part matters to me — a lot.

Could this newfound addiction to AI come back to haunt me? Absolutely. Probably in ways I can't see yet.

Keeping our voice in the room as women, our dignity for all human beings, and our care for the natural world while AI transforms everything is a conversation that needs to stay loud.

THAT AND right now, I’m a photographer with ADHD who is sleeping better, fighting with fewer emails, and actually excited about her bathroom.

I’m optimistic.

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Four AI apps I actually use every single day because they make my life easier — linked below if you want to try any of them.

• Wisprflow — My go-to texting dictation app. It gets loaded as a “keyboard” in your phone, and it makes dictating a text sound normal, not insane. Eliminates run-on sentences, slots events into order, uses proper title case and grammar, and I almost never have edits when I review it before pressing send. In fact, if you speak with proper “reading with expression”, Wispr will sense where to put your commas! Unbelievably helpful.

• Granola — AI notepad for meetings. It runs in the background and returns a clean, thorough summary. Game changer for anyone whose notes normally look like a squirrel disco.

I’m great in the room, I love face time with a client, but I’m so “on” that the meeting often ends with me saying to myself afterward, “What did I say exactly?” This saves me by providing the info I need for a thoughtful follow-up.

Another time I used it was like a party trick — I tested how long it could record by using it at a full two-hour happy hour. I announced that I was using a new app at the start of the convo, and since AI is on everyone’s mind, people were so into it! Then I sent everyone the summary after. It recorded every part of the convos, minus all my lame jokes! What a win.

• Chat GPT — Best for quick fact-finding — the kind of stuff you'd normally just Google. And their image generator does my absolute favorite "make this room have THIS tile floor…" bathroom renderings.

• Claude — Yes, Claude, the buzzy favorite of Spring ‘26 (who my friend affectionately calls Clive, as though she’s made him HERS).

Claude is the AI I rely on the most. I use Claudey-Claude for email editing to improve professionalism, for dictating an idea and asking for my ramble to be formatted into a to-do list or draft, and for thinking through problems out loud by having the AI ask ME questions about the kind of answer I need. It’s also what I use to strip the emotional baggage out of a client email at 11 p.m. when I should be asleep.

This is how the midnight to-do list gets out of my head and into something actionable.

If you try any of these for the first time, I’d love to hear how it went! Send a message or post a comment, so others can see.

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1. Body Doubling Session — Coming in June, an opportunity to feel supported and motivated to tackle your own tasks by doing so across from another rad person.

I’m hosting my first-ever community work session, which people call “body doubling,” and it’s a practice I find TRULY helpful for productive work.

90 minutes on Zoom: 10 min intro chat, 70 min heads-down work, 10 min closing chat. Theme: Attack the one mundane thing that’s been on your to-do list for weeks. Admin, research, insurance, whatever you’ve been avoiding. Bring it. Get it done.

Interested? Hit reply! I’ll tell you more.

2. Hamptons Family Photo Sessions — Book Now for Summer

Opening the calendar for July, August, and September weekend sessions. Spots drop on Memorial Day Monday — and there aren’t many. Mark it.

3. Small Business Branding Photos

I’m deep in it with my entrepreneurial clients right now — making genuinely iconic, first-of-its-kind work for their personal brands.

If this is you and you want something people actually remember, hit reply — I’d love to tell you more about how it works.

4. Guest Post

I was a guest writer this week on the Blue Balloon School Substack (songwriting school). I photographed brand photos for BBS and spent time with them, and I really got to know their business. Then, my own kid started lessons with a teacher there, and it went really well! I loved this interview; I got to write about my own life and history alongside the experience of photographing them. I’d love for you to read it!

Also, if you’re a Substack publisher, consider guest-writing for another creator — it’s a very rewarding creative collaboration! (thank you, Blue Balloon!)

Share Six Pics I Clicked // Ana Gambuto

How do you save your inspiration when you find it? I’m always curious how other people organize the stuff that moves them. Tell me below.

I keep a saved folder on Instagram specifically for accounts that stop me mid-scroll VISUALLY — the ones I want to return to, think about, extract energy from in the best possible way. This week I’m sharing six of them with you.

As I mentioned, I’m doing some fun renovation on my house, and I’m super into beautiful home inspo.

This was a long one — is anyone still here? Tap a heart if you made it this far. I have more to say, actually. There’s always more.

Until then, wishing you many cherry-blossom stomping moments around town. I like to kick them around like confetti.

hugs!!

Ana

Hiiiiiiiii!

I’m a professional photographer, and if I’m in your life personally, I’m definitely the fun friend. Not available for a run. Very available to try a controversial new beauty product, eat somewhere impossible to get into, perform a skit, make up a song on the spot, or film a quick happy birthday video for someone who lives far away. Any unhinged side quest you’re enthusiastic about — I’m your girl.

I was raised by the waves in Santa Cruz, CA, and then spent my baby-adult years stomping around New York City. Now I’m in Sag Harbor with a husband I adore, three darling kids, and a garden I’m deeply committed to. I work with clients here in the Hamptons and head into NYC every week, which has turned out to be the exact life I find satisfying, bursting with non-stop energy. Thriving.

My new obsession is weekly writing as a hobby, which I realize sounds like something a person says right before they get really into sourdough, but I promise it’s more interesting than that.

I'm terminally online, and I'm not even a little sorry about it? My phone is basically tuned to the top tier of what's being shared at any given moment — but I come at it with curiosity, a real eye for what's actually funny, and an overwhelming need to tell everyone I know.

Enter — my shiny new Substack.

Every issue: six photos I use to tell a story. Six pics that clicked for me. It might be a thing from my life, a full-on personal essay, or just a random collection of curiosities, things I’m noticing, the stuff that doesn’t make it onto Instagram. Part photography, part ADHD diary, part handbook for using your aesthetic to make daily life happier.

I figured out that paying attention to uncommon things is both my job and my superpower, so I made a newsletter about it.

1. my girls. sisters becoming besties 🌸 // pink dogwood outside the John Jermain Library, Sag Harbor

2. me in my element — photographing two kids i love dearly // the rippling pool got me, it always does

3. my oldest, camera in hand — me with mine // two artists, two cameras, one very happy 8-year-old in sequins 🪩

1. Mini-shoots in the Hamptons are coming! Hit reply if you want to be added to the list — subscribers get first access.

2. NYC mini-shoots are also happening. Hit reply and say something witty. I’ll add you to that list, too.

3. Need photos for something? You can now book a free inquiry call and tell me all about it.

4. SAG HARBOR — save the date. Saturday, May 9th at the Church, 11 am–3 pm. I’ll be at the Sag Saturdays pop-up alongside local businesses, all hanging out to gab with the community. Stop by — I’d love to see you.

   Okay, yes, I want this.

   ---

Of course, since I had somewhere important to be in the morning, I was inexplicably awake at 5 a.m. I’d argued with a friend that afternoon, and I was sleepless with thoughts of what I could have said, but didn’t.

I read somewhere that if you can’t sleep, you’re supposed just to lie there until you drift back off. But I was so awake, my eyelashes were twitching.

This was December. Heavy and cold in the way only December is. I decided just to get up.

I crept out to the kitchen in a pitch-dark house — I’d left the blessed phone on the nightstand and couldn’t risk waking the baby by going back in. I found myself with an empty Apple Note open on my computer, much like this one, and I just started to write.

That was the beginning.

The next morning, I got up early again. Not by choice — a bad dream had yanked my daughter out of her sleep — but I rose easily, because my laptop was waiting. I padded out carefully, wondering, “Is this who I am now?” I was secretly looking forward to creating some whimsical ritual around my morning pages, something I could narrate later at parties, delivered with a casual hair flip.

I couldn’t really remember what I’d written the night before. I opened the note eagerly, honestly kind of expecting something exquisite on the page, because writing at 5 am is something Real Writers do, right? Surely my friends Jess Soffer and Susan Passoni do this. Surely Real Journalist Rachel Bowie does.

The blinking cursor giggled at me. The draft was… terrible.

Ah, well.

This is the middle of the story.

I read recently that a glimmer is the opposite of a trigger — something small that moves you. Not setting you off, but setting you forth. A little puff of propulsion toward something unknown, but something good.

I got up early a total of five times. And then, I didn’t.

Now it’s May — late sunsets, later bedtimes, and early mornings are rare. But knowing I did it, knowing I can, is a glimmery reminder that writing from the heart is good for the brain. It quiets a racing mind and closes the thought-loops that torment. If I don’t write, those loops stay open, stealing bandwidth. When I feel lost, the morning pages are there to bring me back.

A little noticing. A little writing.

Puff. Forward. Puff. Forward.

The story isn’t over. New chapter dropping every week on Six Pics I Clicked.

The tabs that live in my head rent-free!

BOOKS // Last week I went to Brooklyn to see a writer I love, Kaitlyn Teer, read from her new book Little Apocalypses — essays about motherhood and climate change that will make you cry happy tears, sad tears, and probably both at once. Genuinely inspiring. I loved it. She was interviewed by my friend Joanna, and the two of them together were so funny — Joanna always asks the best questions. What a treat.

BEAUTY // I scream if this product isn’t in my purse for some reason.

I was born with two fluffy sections of frizz exactly like Krusty, on either side of my head. They’ve been on active duty since childhood, and even in midlife, they’re resilient and ever-present.

The DAE Styling Wand is basically a giant mascara wand filled with styling cream — and it just puts the hairs in their place. No crunch, no fuss, no questions asked. I use it every single day, and I cannot get over it.

What a note to end on. From the bottom of my frizzy heart to yours - thank you for reading down this far.

Not to make this a whole thing, but I'm finishing this edit at 5 am. Again. (Eee, I love a full circle moment!) Today, the stars aligned, and I woke up early! I wonder if my subconscious just couldn’t resist.

I’d love to know: Who’s your favorite read on Substack? Leave it in the comments!

Send Six Pics to a friend if you think it’ll make their day. Or tap the heart at the bottom.

hugs!!

Ana