Join the New Bedford Whaling Museum for the December AHA! Program where David Zapatka, author of four USA Stars & Lights books including two upcoming Spring 2025 releases, will share his images and stories of their capture during New Bedford’s “AHA! Night”. During the evening event, David will offer three different short lectures with his stunning photography projected in the Cook Memorial Theater:

4:45PM - Night Lighthouses of Massachusetts,

5:30PM - Night Lighthouses of the Northeast, and

6:15PM - Night Lighthouses of America.

About David Zapatka

For eleven years, photographer David Zapatka of North Kingstown, Rhode Island has been documenting America’s historic lighthouses in a way seldom seen: in the dark of night. Historically, we have little to no photographs of lighthouses from when they do their most important work. With prolific lighthouse construction and photography’s invention occurring simultaneously in the early 1800s, creating night photographs was particularly a technical challenge. Historical night images of lighthouses simply do not exist. Think of the irony, as lighthouses perform their most important work at night.

David is a forty-year veteran retired television cameraman for national news and sports programs. He is also the president of Friends of Plum Beach Lighthouse, stewards of the historic 1899 lighthouse on Narragansett Bay. Now the Director of Photography for the nonprofit United States Lighthouse Society, David travels the country in a donated project RV to bring these images for all to see.