Personally I tend not to hotlink because I don't trust the other site to always be there. But then I always build my own web sites too so it is easy for me to host images. I have space and bandwidth and full control over content. I don't think you can upload pictures to blogspot.

Clearly this blog needs links to images in the same way that my own blog, or Ken's, needs links to articles. But I think it is OK to do them via ordinary links the way Ken did with the old gowns.