Last week I showcased some of my own photos with Vampire themes. Today we have some images of Emma Darling, a Preston based model, taken by various photographers. Each one shows a different aspect of the image of the Vampire. I asked Emma to comment on the photos and this is what she said:

Photographer: Rob Vanner 

I had so much fun shooting these images.

I love the darkness and beauty of vampires, there’s something spine tingling yet thrilling about these dark creatures.

Beautiful yet deadly.

I’m Emma Darling a professional model and actress from Preston,

I adore modelling and feel honoured to be part of people art.

I cover a whole range of styles my favourite being fantasy, horror and cosplay,

I find it exhilarating playing new characters each day I throw myself into it wholeheartedly and imagine I am that character throughout the shoot.

This can be challenging but so much fun!

Photo by Graham Peers

Emma’s work covers a range of different styles and shows how the image of the vampire has changed. The second photo by Graham Peers shows a traditional Nosferatu style vampire posing with Emma as a Hammer style character, while the one above (by Rob Vanner who also seems to have many more gothy vampire shots on his portfolio) is a more modern style.

The final shot, also by Graham Peers, is also a modern look. All three have a definite goth vibe to them. Consider Jack Cutler’s gothic tragedy vampire from my previous post for another take on the concept. I guess that the immortality of vampires, both in fiction and as a concept in fiction, opens up a lot of possibilities. You can have a vampire character in a novel from any period of history or from any part of the world.

Of course, the tendency is for a lot of Vampires to find themselves mired in the Victorian period. I guess we have  Bram Stoker to blame for that as Dracula, a tale so firmly set in that period, is the most well known vampire character. After all, he does seem to come up a lot in answers to the Vampire Month

Photo by Graham Peers

questions. However, other periods do get a look in with Ann Rice popularising the 1700s and good old Edward Cullen being a first world war veteran. The modern day is also well represented with the classics there being ‘The Lost Boys’ (though it may not be politic to point out that film was released in 1987 which is exactly 30 years ago now, so I guess it counts as a period piece…) and the Underworld series ( the first of which was released in 2003).

All these examples do have one thing in common, of course. They all show the vampire as sexy. Even Dracula was described as being attractive. The exception seems to be poor old Nosferatu in photograph two. That was a character who wore his dark soul on the outside.

If you felt like commenting, you could talk about which type of vampire you prefer or whether you think there is an historic period or other style of vampire you think is overused or should be used more.