Viewpoint: ‘Saints by Night’

One artist’s view of downtown St. Paul

Prose and photo by Jared Arvin | Contributor | January 2025

In the hours when the city exhaled its final breath for the day, the streets became something else. Here, under the soft glow of lamps, the familiar took on new shapes – buildings loomed higher, shadows stretched longer, and the air thickened with the weight of stillness. There’s something about nighttime that draws you in, not to the noise, but to the quiet moments – the ones that drift by if you aren’t watching.

“Saints by Night” captures that stillness, where every figure melts into the fabric of the city, unnoticed yet deeply present. Each passerby carries a story, told not through words but through their pace, their posture, their movement against the brick and steel. Some shuffle alone, heads low, while others linger in clusters, sharing whispers too faint to catch. Yet, somehow, they all belong to this moment, bound by the cold and the quiet.

The scene is scored by the distant melody of jazz, a tune that rolls through the air like fog, drifting between alleyways and fading into the night sky. It’s the kind of music that wraps itself around you – not loud enough to interrupt, but present enough to shape the rhythm of the night. Road to the West – smooth, slow, wandering – floats in the background as the night unfolds. A song without urgency, like the street itself.

In this frame, the city transforms. Daylight might expose its imperfections, its hurried pace, its chaotic moments, but at night, everything seems more deliberate. The edges of the buildings, the glow of signs, the faint outline of figures passing through the shadows – it all becomes art, a living, breathing canvas rendered in tones of noir.

This is where it began for me, with this moment, this image. A simple street, a handful of people, a cold night. But in the quiet, I found something more – a sense that the night holds secrets, stories waiting to unfold. “Saints by Night” isn’t just a photo; it’s an invitation to pause, to look closer, and to listen to the spaces where sound fades. And maybe, if you stand there long enough, you’ll hear it too – the soft murmur of a city at rest, waiting for the next chapter to begin.

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