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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.

New exhibits are the perfect ammo to inspire your own work. Here are a few that caught my eye this week.

The controversial Jill Greenberg's new exhibit New Bears just kicked off at the Clamp Art gallery in New York. Greenberg broke into the industry with her celebrity portraiture and continues to interest audiences with her animal portraits. Capturing individuality amongst her subjects, Greenberg constructed an outdoor studio in Canada and focused her lens on large bears. The exhibit runs from November 5th to December 19th and features a book signing November 13th from 6-8pm.

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.

Hahnemuhle USA created a new type of paper. It uses bagasse and cotton fiber.  Bagasse is a by-product from sugar cane refining, and the cotton fibers come from recycling paper mill waste. It's green and it works well. Recommended for use with inkjet printers, the paper is naturally white, textured, and it resists aging.

The paper is part of Hahnemule's Green Initiative Program.

The paper is the choice of Daniel Beltrá. His newest exhibit about tropical deforestation and it's impact on climate change, is printed on the green  paper. The exhibit, part of an awareness effort of The Prince's Rainforests Project, runs October 26th until November 22nd at the National Geographic Store in London.

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

Welcome to the latest installment of ZIO's newest weekly series, Late to the Party, in which we catch you up on what everybody - from staff writers at the top outlets to the bloggers hiding in their mothers' basements - has been saying about a rising artist.

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.

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.

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.