Stealing from an artist is nasty. But when an artist steals from another artist, that’s reprehensible. It seems that Rihanna is being accused of stealing from a 19-year-old Parisian fashion photographer, Philipp Paulus.

Check out the story on the Photo District News website.

My favorite quote from Paulus: “Why a worldwide celebrity is not able to afford a creative director…is incomprehensible to me.”

The current issue of Harper’s Bazaar features a 12-image slideshow of Tim Burton’s Halloween fashion imaginings.

Tim Walker shot the photos and I’d love to see the behind-the-scenes video from this shoot. I’m guessing a crane was involved.

. . . at least that’s what I’m calling it. It’s a damned nifty little tool that lets us see the before and after of models shot by Greg Kessler in and out of makeup at Milan fashion week.

It’s used in T Magazine‘s The Moment blog and the reader comments are overwhelmingly positive. A great use of Flash, imo.

Kudos to the propeller-heads at NYT.com.

Seems as if everyone is shooting video of their studio shoots. That’s a good thing.

Check this out: “V” magazine’s video of the Maybelline calendar shoot. Dallas native and former winner of the Fashion Dallas/Kim Dawson Model Search, Erin Wasson, is featured.

“INSITE” arrived unannounced in my email this morning and it’s a typically snazzy Neiman’s presentation. The Jason Wu interview on page 2 is a quick 10-questions that left me wanting to know more. A “shop Jason Wu” link at the end of the Q&A would have been handy. Granted, there’s a half page “shop Jason Wu” image on the same page that links to his wares but for usability’s sake, it needs to be in the Q&A.

Page 3′s “The Definitive Piece This Fall: The Over-The-Knee Boot” sports a quick video intro of a leggy NYC model crossing the street and it’s an eye-catcher, and again, I want more but it dumps me onto a page where I can select from a menu of designer boots. I need more cowbell. Who says the over-the-knee boot is the definitive piece this fall? Seems like an excellent opportunity to quote Anna or any number of fashion high-priestesses who’ll tell me WHY it’s the definitive piece this fall. I’m here, I’m shopping, ENGAGE ME!!!

Which brings us to Page 4′s “Outside the Box: Gift (shouldn’t that be ‘Gifts’???) for the Newlyweds” needs some clever “Daily Candy-ish” banter to liven it up. I’m married, but definitely not ENGAGED!

On page 5, the Father’s Day video, “Of Mouse and Man” is a clever and ENGAGING pitch that showcases a variety of gorgeous manly neckties. It’s so cool I’d like to email it to my friends, but because Neiman’s didn’t give me that option and because it’s a Flash video with no link, I won’t, or can’t. Note to “INSITE” team: Make it viral. Gimme a link I can email!!!

Page 6 is pure advertising, but that’s okay, they’re trying to sell me stuff–it’s Neiman’s and I expect that but if this is an e-zine, then let’s keep a decent content-to-advertising ratio. In eight pages, I’m gonna allow you one or two that are pure sales pitch.

Page 7 is a calendar. Okay.

Page 8 is a teaser to the upcoming issue, but nowhere am I told if this is a daily, weekly or monthly ezine. Why is that? Why doesn’t Neiman’s want me to know when to expect the next issue?

Nowhere in the email announcing the debut of “INSITE” am I told ANYTHING about the publication. It’s simply a VERY DISTRACTING Flash image that quite literally flickers off and on caused me concern that my broadband connection was failing. Lose the flicker. Just because we CAN do something “cool” with Flash, doesn’t mean we SHOULD.

Debut-wise, “INSITE” has descended the staircase without doing a face-plant but she’s gonna need to make up points during the interview and curtsey events. She needs to speak to us and let us know how smart she is. She needs more CONTENT.

She needs more cowbell.

I recently finished shooting four days of runway fashion at NorthPark Center’s Fashion at the Park. NorthPark launched their first show this past spring, and it was a huge success, so this autumn show was a no-brainer.

Once again I had the opportunity to work for Evans Caglage, a veteran of 20-plus years shooting runway shows in Milan, Paris and NYC. A senior staff photographer at The Dallas Morning News, Caglage has photographed virtually every supermodel to strut the catwalk during the past two decades.

His relationship with the Kim Dawson Agency during the past 25 years has allowed him to work with Erin Wasson, Chandra North, Angie Harmon, Bridget Hall and recently, Ali Michael.

NorthPark has done a superb job of creating a Fashion Week-like experience, according to Caglage, “From inside that tent, you’d never know you weren’t in Bryant Park.” Caglage took a week’s vacation from his newspaper job to manage a team of four photographers responsible for shooting editing and posting images from all 19 runway events as well as the parties before and after each show.

Using PhotoShelter Caglage’s team uploaded 1,572 full-res images (average jpeg image size: 35 to 45 megabytes), during the four-day event and as of this writing, more than 1,542 images have been downloaded. Caglage requested a big pipe for image uploading, to avoid backups between shows, and the 350-kilobit line did the trick. Images were available for download within two hours of the end each show. The downloadable files are available, by password, only to the fashion media.

In the interest of full disclosoure, I was working for Caglage who, for this one-week period, was working for NorthPark, but I must say that NOBODY does an event like NorthPark. Nancy Nasher was at all but a couple shows and her influence was evident in every detail.