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Lay Flat is a newish nonprofit (founded by photographer Shane Lavalette) seeking to help artists create awesome photo books.  Founded in January of 2009, they are still getting their feet wet.

They work with both up-and-coming and more established artists to "create books that express a vision and exist as artful objects in themselves."  Lay Flat also publishes a magazine.

Their books are Lay Flat 01: Remain in Light (out now) and Lay Flat 02: META (coming soon).

Young places like this are a great way to gain a lot of experience quickly. If you are in the Boston area and in school, check out their internship.

Olympus recently released their new Micro Four Thirds Pen EP-1 camera. It's bragging rights include being the world's smallest 12.3-megapixel camera with interchangeable lenses. It can record HD video and audio, create slideshows, and, of course, take quality stills. The full specs can be found here.

Brimming with interesting tidbits about everything from manipulation software to lenses, Photography 24/7 is a site that inspires people to take their pictures further. Most of the content seems geared towards young photographers looking to break into the industry and photo-fledglings.

Recent features include a spotlight on photographer Tony Sweet, affordable photo editing software, and tricks to handle bad weather on assignment.

What separates this site from many others is that you can feel how excited the writer is about photography. The tone is downright giddy when a new product goes for a test drive and the Tony Sweet interview sounded nearly awestruck.  I say passion and quality content make this site certifiably awesome.

Fotolia's new plug-in, created for Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, lets users directly log in to their image gallery to purchase pictures. The application is free and gives you access to Fotolia's high resolution images.

One you buy an image, you can use it without any restrictions on locations or number of times used or period of time. The images are royalty-free.

This blog was contributed by Frances Cirenza, ZIO Photography Channel Assistant.

It's sometimes hard to get away from all the negativity swirling around the music industry these days.

The Minox DSC, a point and shoot, is 2.560x1.920 pixels, takes AVI video, and is super discreet. While no professional photographer should ditch his current camera for the Minox DSC, it's perfect addition to an arsenal of kitschy and cool gear.

A dash of this, a lens from that, and Abby Normal for a brain Linux for an operating system creates the prototype for Frankencamera.

Stanford Professor Marc Levoy believes his monster will create a surge in camera innovation. I agree.

Want to hob-nob in LA? HobNob Wines wants to send you to LA to hang out in a swanky hotel and party. Sounds too good, right?

The winner and a friend fly to LA  to stay at The Standard Downtown LA Hotel and get VIP access to a nightclub. Runners up get a Flip Mino HD personal camcorder. All you have to do is snap a few photographs of you with your friends out living it up.

You have until 1/10/10 to get your entries in. The catch is that photos have to be taken within October, November, or December of this year. Good luck!

This blog was contributed by Frances Cirenza, ZIO Photography Channel Assistant.

Kodak and Photo District News  have a photo contest called Best Friends: The Ultimate Animal Photo Contest. Now doesn't that sound nice? It is both ultimate AND about our animal friends.