Hey everyone! It’s been a while, so I figured I should re-introduce myself. I’m Amanda, the owner and principal photographer here at Kimberlin Gray Photography!

I started Kimberlin Gray Photography in 2009 after having my second child. He was about 3 months old the first time I took a paying client….and my daughter was only 3 years old. I guess I figured I wasn’t busy enough and needed a new challenge. HA! Between sleepless nights with a newborn and the “threenager”’s tantrums, this photography business was born. My kids were the inspiration behind everything, of course, and the name Kimberlin Gray comes from them. Kimberlin is my mother’s maiden name and we named our firstborn Ava Kimberlin. Gray is my husband’s grandfather’s name and we named our son Carter Gray. So it seemed perfect to use their special middle names when putting together something special to me. They are now 10 and 13 years old - boy does time fly!

Family is everything to me. I’m blessed to have three siblings and 5 nieces and nephews. We grew up with a wonderful mother and father and my aunt who is like a grandmother to me. This past year, for my mom’s 70th birthday, we all gathered here in Virginia Beach and had Elizabeth take our BIG family portraits. I am so thankful to have these pictures and I know how important having beautiful images of your family really is. And my mother was over the moon to have a portrait of all her kids and grandkids!!

Probably the most important person in my life is my husband, Ryan. We met when we were just 14 years old and were friends for 5 years before we began dating. We have now been married for 20 years. *gasp*

The photos I have of our wedding are some of my biggest treasures - even back then, I knew that investing in a professional photographer was so important. And it was. Literally everything else either is consumed or gets put away somewhere, never to be seen again. But the photos hanging on our walls and the album of all our friends and family will last forever.

I have photos of our family hanging all around our home. Our dining room is filled with a collage of one photo from each year of our family’s history. It’s one of my favorite rooms - and we all often look at those photos and marvel at how much our family has changed and grown. The photos of our kids from when they were little are absolute treasures now that they are in the…ahem….challenging….ahem… preteen and teen years.

But the one constant in my life has always been my husband. He supported me when I had this crazy idea to open a business with a newborn and a toddler. He has helped me with my books and taxes (two of my LEAST favorite parts of this business) since the beginning and has always trusted me to make decisions about the business without “asking permission”. I value his opinion, but he never made me feel like I needed him to approve of my choices or decisions for the business.

We love to cruise together and make it a point to vacation together, without the kids, every year so that we can spend quality time together without the distractions of work and kids and the busy-ness of life.

I love to snuggle up with a good book, spend time with my scrapbooking friends on weekend retreats, and sleep in on lazy mornings! Some other favorites are: McDonald’s Coke (I don’t drink coffee!), Steven Colbert, Bullet Journaling, and homemade mac and cheese! You’ll often find me debating politics or hot button issues on Facebook, binge watching crime shows on TV or in carpool pickup line at my kids’ school(every day!).

I hope to have the opportunity to create YOUR family’s legacy in photographs so that you, too, can chronicle your history, remember the moments, and cherish the memories!