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Friendships play an important role throughout our lives. They’re a constant and valuable part of our community that offer essential companionship and support. In honor of International Friendship Day, we wanted to talk about the different types of friendships many of us have and how they evolve in adulthood. As we mature and our lives change, it’s natural to have friends that fit different roles or for those roles to change over time. The most important thing is that friends continue to show up for each other in a way only they know how.

Childhood Friends: The First of Many Friendships

Childhood friends are special for all of us. Whether you met as neighbors, in grade school, or at summer camp, these friendships have strong foundations in shared memories and experiencing some of life’s first milestones together. Childhood friends know us in a way many others never will, and they provide a sense of familiarity and unwavering support. Distance, adult responsibilities, and busy schedules may mean we don’t see these friends as much or that we aren’t fully up-to-date on the latest happenings in each other’s lives, but it doesn’t lessen that foundational bond. Time apart just makes reconnecting with childhood friends that much more rewarding and nostalgic.

Shared Hobby Friends: The Friendships With Overlapping Passions

As adults, one of the most cherished types of friends we can have is one with whom we share a hobby. A friend you make via shared interests not only understands that passion, but also actively participates in it with you. Whether it’s spending time outside, playing sports, making music, or any other variety of interesting hobbies, this friend fuels your enthusiasm and is creating memories right alongside you. When you share a bond over a mutual love for an activity, it becomes a powerful connection that deepens your friendship and creates a foundation for a long lasting relationship. Having a friend who loves what you do, makes the things you enjoy that much more meaningful.

Ride or Die Friends: The Best Friendships

If you’re lucky, you have a best friend that is there for you through thick and thin. In adulthood, weeks can pass without catching up, but as soon as you do it’s like you never skipped a beat. The ride or die friends are the type that would drop everything to support us, and probably have at some point or another. They know you better than anyone and have the power to bring joy, comfort and a sense of belonging. They’re who you go to when you need advice or when you just need to vent — and they know the difference between the two.

For many adults, friendships take on different forms and serve different roles. There are many more types of friends than what we can list here, and they’re all essential to forming a well rounded support system. While we might not have the same consistency that we did in the past, it’s now easier than ever to stay in touch. The internet allows us to check in with friends near and far in many different ways. We now have the ability to e-mail friends on different continents or reconnect with ones we haven’t seen in years through social media. Nixplay even offers digital frames that can be updated via shared playlists. So you can gift frames to friends and share photos via the frames that you’ll see everyday. It’s a great way to stay connected and see what everyone is up to, and it might even prompt an extra phone call or text message from time to time. However you choose to keep in touch, we hope you check in with your friends for International Friendship Day.

Capture the Magic of Summer: Photography Tips and Tricks

By Nixplay Team

On June 30, 2023

In Customer Testimonials

The arrival of summer brings an explosion of colors, warmth, and joy. It’s the perfect time to create beautiful memories and freeze them in time through the art of photography. Whether you’re lounging on a sandy beach, exploring breathtaking landscapes, or simply enjoying quality time with loved ones, capturing the essence of summer can be a delightful and easy experience. In this blog, we’ll explore some expert tips and tricks to help you take amazing summer photos that will make your memories last a lifetime.

Embrace Natural Light:

One of the key elements that set summer apart is the abundance of natural light. To make the most of it, try shooting during the “golden hour” – the hour after sunrise or before sunset – when the light is softer and creates a warm, flattering glow. If your summer activities necessitate taking photos in the middle of the day, seek out shaded areas to soften harsh shadows and create a more balanced exposure.

Compose with Care:

When framing your summer shots, pay attention to composition. Utilize the “rule of thirds” by mentally dividing your frame into a grid of nine equal parts and placing key elements along the intersecting lines. In beach or landscape shots, incorporate leading lines, such as a shoreline or a road, to guide the viewer’s eye toward the main subject. Experiment with different angles, perspectives, and points of view to add intrigue to your summer photographs.

Tell a story:

Your summer photos should do more than just capture a moment; they should tell a story. Look beyond posed shots and aim to capture candid moments. Whether it’s a niece or nephew building a sandcastle, friends laughing on a picnic blanket, or relatives sharing a meal at a family reunion, these authentic moments are special and sentimental to look back on for years to come. Be observant and ready to capture those fleeting, magical instances that define summer.

Preserve and Share Your Memories:

Now that you’ve preserved precious memories and created an extraordinary visual collection of the season’s magic, it’s time to showcase the beautiful photos you’ve captured. Nixplay digital frames allow you to display entire playlists of photos so you aren’t forced to choose just one. Plus, you can share playlists with friends and family to stay up-to-date on each other’s summer activities. They can even add their own photos to collaborative playlists, making shared memories a treasured part of your summer.

Preserve Your Family Legacy Through Photos

By Cathi Nelson

On August 12, 2021

In Photography, Special Moments

Your story matters. It matters to you, it matters to your family, and it will matter to generations to come.

While it can be daunting to imagine writing your story down, much of it has already been documented through photos, which are probably scattered all over the place—stored on various devices, on hard drives, laptops and phones. And that’s just the digital ones.

The rest might be in shoeboxes, in your garage, and attic. Or they may be in slide carousels or in old leather photo albums with self-adhesive pages (which, by the way, are causing stains and damage).

How satisfying would it be to gather all your photos and organize them into a tidy system that allowed you to easily find the ones you wanted? So that you could create slideshows or presentations and even print books or create personalized gifts from them?

There’s no time like the present to put in a little bit of work—in exchange for peace of mind and the preservation of your family legacy through photos.

Every September, The Photo Managers, a community I started in 2009, holds in-person and virtual classes that educate and inspire people to save their photos. We work with professional photo organizers, photo retailers, and related companies to come up with an exciting array of activities. This year, we have 30 days of activities organized around four themes: gathering, organizing, story-telling and bringing photos to life.

› Sign up for Save Your Photos Month!

One of our photo manager members, Sue Triggs-Rhuda, runs Modern Memorykeeper, a professional photo organizing service. While working with a widow whose late husband had been a Holocaust survivor, she recently came across an entire trove of photos from Poland in the 1940’s.

“They were amazing records of these families, but they also had tremendous historical significance. And it was just this huge surprise to both of us that these photos had been sitting in a box in the attic all these years.”

“If we don’t preserve these, people won’t know about them.”

“I”m kind of bringing my clients into the digital age,” Sue says. “Once their photos are all organized, they can be displayed on Apple TV, you can post them on social media, you can do anything. But mostly, you have the peace of mind.”

Save Your Photos Month features 30+ pre-recorded mini-classes presented by industry professionals, many of whom I know personally. These sessions can prepare you with the know-how you need to tackle your photo projects—or even launch a business as a Photo Manager.

We hope you’ll join us in September for Save Your Photos Month. Sign up here!

The Importance of Lightroom Presets in Instagram Marketing

By Wendy Dessler

On May 14, 2021

In Photography

Marketing on social media has become an incredibly large business. In fact, tens of billions of dollars is spent on social media advertising in the USA alone. There are many different platforms and apps that both individuals and companies alike can market themselves on.

One of the biggest is certainly Instagram. It boasts over a billion users and is incredibly popular amongst a variety of ages groups. Of course, the name of the game for marketing (either yourself or a product) on Instagram comes down to photos.

The Importance of Lightroom Presets in Instagram Marketing — (via: https://pixabay.com/photos/macbook-laptop-computer-creative-2620119/)

If your photos don’t look good and can’t bring people in, they likely won’t click on your profile, follow you or consider your product. Among the best ways to ensure your photos look incredible is to use Lightroom presets.

This article is going to go over the importance of using Lightroom presets when it comes to marketing on Instagram.

They can Save Time

A Lightroom preset is similar to a filter, only that it is custom-made by fine-tuning various sliders and settings within Lightroom to come out with the desired effect. Also, it will look consistent photo to photo, while filters may not, depending on lighting and other aspects.

While creating a preset itself can take a while, once it is built and saved, it can be used on any photo you want, instantly. It is essentially like having a high-quality, pre-made and customizable filter that you can use to make any photo look consistently better.

Simply having these presets ready to use can save you a ton of time compared to if you had to edit and fine-tune each one before posting. If you don’t feel like making your own presets, there are plenty of people out there who took the time to learn how to sell digital downloads and have put theirs up for sale. These will come with a cost, but will be able to save you even more time.

Takes Your Content and Photos to the Next Level

Of course, another reason these presets are important is simply because they take your photos to the next level. People are much more likely to follow or check out your products if your feed is full of beautiful photos with the right presets. These presets can improve every aspect of your photo. This goes from the colors, to the contrast, to the warmth and many others in between.

They can make your page much more consistent from post to post, and help it look professional at the same time. No matter where you capture a photo, the lighting or even the style, adding the right preset can ensure it stays in line with the direction of your feed and fits your aesthetic.

They Make Comparisons Easy

An important part of editing photos for Instagram is comparisons. You need to compare different presets and sliders to see how they make a photo look. Lightroom makes this easy as it allows you to easily see the photo before and after your edits and presets have been added.

This is much simpler than having to open up multiple tabs or files. It also lets you ensure you are using the correct preset for your particular page. If you use Lightroom presets to experiment on a specific photo, you can also rest assured that the original will stay untouched.

The app doesn’t overwrite the original photo or even edit it at all. Because of this, you will be able to always compare your presets to the original. This can help you to see which filters or settings work, and which don’t. Without comparing photos to the original, you can often lose sight of what made the photo great in the first place.

In conclusion, we hope that this blog post has been able to help you learn the importance of using Lightroom presets in your Instagram marketing efforts.

Nixplay Helps Non-Profit Trees for the Future Reach Milestone of 200 Million Trees Planted Globally

By johnsardanas

On April 20, 2021

In From The Nixplay Team

In celebration of Earth Day, sustainable agriculture nonprofit Trees for the Future (TREES) recently announced that they have planted more than 200 million trees around the world. Over the past three decades, tens of thousands of farmers have planted the trees on their own land in conjunction with TREES agroforestry training.

The milestone was made possible with support from thousands of individual donors and more than 300 brand partners, including Nixplay. Nixplay’s commitment to sustainability started in 2017 when they launched Smart Frames for Sustainable Forests initiative. For every Nixplay Smart Photo Frame sold, one tree seed is planted in Sub-Saharan Africa to combat hunger, poverty and deforestation in their communities.

As part of their efforts, Nixplay has helped plant 764,470 trees, restored more than 191 acres of forests and helped support 1,539 people on the path out of hunger and poverty.

“We’re thrilled to be part of the impact our contributions have made through our Smart Frames for Sustainable Forests initiative,” said Mark Palfreeman, CEO at Nixplay. “And we are not done yet and will continue to actively participate until the cause is no longer.”

The 200 million trees are planted in more than 50 countries and they are all part of thoughtful agroforestry systems. More than 76 million of the trees are part of what TREES calls Forest Gardens, strategically planted and diverse farms consisting of thousands of trees and dozens of plant and food species.

“We are ecstatic to reach this milestone, it’s a memorable step in our mission to create a more sustainable food system while planting trees,” says Executive Director John Leary. “We could not have done this without the hardwork and determination of the farmers we serve, the talent and dedication of our global staff, and the unending generosity of our partners and supporters, like Nixplay. The important and unique thing about these 200 million trees is that they are here to stay because they were planted with the climate and landowner in mind. These trees will continue providing food or resources to these farmers for years to come and, at the same time, they are restoring our environment by bringing back biodiversity, channeling water into the ground, improving soil fertility, and continually storing carbon in the soil.”

“TREES, through its Forest Garden Approach has added new varieties of trees, vegetables, food and nutrition base to my family,” says Tanzanian farmer Salma Mussa. “This program is good and will keep sustaining my family forever.” (Read Salma’s story here.)

TREES will celebrate its 32nd anniversary this year and is expanding into more countries in the coming months. Learn more about their work at trees.org.

International Friendship Day: Different Types of Adult Friendships