Guinness Ireland: The Power to Lift Us All

Taylor James (www.taylorjames.com), the award-winning creative production studio, collaborated with acclaimed photographer Kevin Griffin to produce this heroic image for Guinness’ latest advertising campaign supporting GAA All-Ireland Senior Championship, commissioned by agency Irish International.
The outdoor banner campaign combined Griffin’s photography and Taylor James’ expertise in creating impossible, yet photo-realistic imagery from multiple shots.
The campaign, launched by Guinness this month, was aptly entitled ‘The Power to Lift Us All’ to represent the force of spirit and pride the Hurling game brings to the Irish nation. Such is the popularity of hurling; the 2010 final drew the biggest sports audience for RTE of any event that year!
Taylor James pulled together multiple elements of varying scale and angle to achieve this complicated retouch, utilising bespoke photography shot by Kevin Griffin and augmenting with material from their own internal stock library, to make the impossible a reality. Taylor James’ understanding of the components and technical challenges involved when capturing photographic images enables them to provide a unique and efficient production solution when working with single frames to large-scale multi-part compositions.
Josh Rogers, Creative Lead and Head of Retouching at Taylor James said:“The image highlights Taylor James’ creative ability to expand an initial brief and develop it into an epic moment in which the unreal feels totally realistic, exceeding both the art director’s and photographer’s creative vision for the image!”
Award-winning advertising photographer, Kevin Griffin, had confidence in Taylor James to get the final look for this image. “I wanted to keep the Guinness work purely photographic, I therefore chose Taylor James to retouch the elements,” he said. “Josh Rogers being one of the best photographic retouchers I’ve worked with in the business, his attention to detail, understanding of a job and patience is second to none.”
Pat Hamill, Senior Art Director at Irish International, Dublin, said “The annual hurling ad has always been an epic undertaking, so having the right photographer and retoucher working very closely from the outset was crucial to the success of the ad. Both Kevin and Taylor James conjured a solid plan of working which meant peace of mind for us. Working to a tight deadline and a very fixed budget, both their experiences in creating memorable ads over the years and a clear understanding for the brand and industry, proved invaluable to this project. ”
See how this complex project came together with a unique Step by Step look on the Taylor James site at www.taylorjames.com/guinness-hurling/.