Volunteer of the Month for June: Photographer Rick Groom

Rick Groom, a new KKFI volunteer, was selected as the volunteer of the month for June for his steadfast work taking over 350 photos of bands, programmers, and staff during the Band Auction (see photo slideshow below) earlier this year. He helped promote the Band Auction fundraiser through the photos, which greatly increased traffic on the KKFI Facebook page.

During a lunch recognizing Rick Groom for his photographic contribution to KKFI during its Band Auction, he shared his history in media work. As a long-time telephone service technician, he wanted to switch careers, bridging his photography studies at the Art Institute of Atlanta. Thus, he started his career in television and video by volunteering to work at a community access TV studio for American Cablevision (now Time Warner) in the early 1990s. Eventually he earned a career in media. Today he works as a video replay operator for local major sports events; he’s active in producing high quality video. He recently worked in London during the Olympics.

Rick responded to a KKFI request for photography volunteers from VolunteerMatch.org. He said his current work “is of the nature variety” and during the visit he mentioned his preference for not taking wedding photos for free-lance work because of the difficulty of the subject’s reaction to an unnatural skin color or other photographic blemish.

During the Band Auction he jumped in with both feet by showing up at 6:00 am on the first day of the live in-studio performance event. Eventually he ended up taking 400 photos that were posted to KKFI’s Facebook Page and Flickr account. His steady work on the camera helped the station reach its goal of $30,000 during the 11-day event that featured over 100 area bands and performers.

Thanks, Rick!

Photos of Making Movies by Rick Groom

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