It wasn't a special night, unless of course you were a Harry Potter fan lining up for a midnight screening (and we saw quite a few of you). But that's exactly why we chose this ordinary Thursday, a night mercifully dry in a steamy summer full of rain, to send out a swarm of STUFF shutterbugs on a mission: to capture a single night in the city through photographs. One Night in Boston is our annual pictorial journey through the bloodstream of Boston, one that leads right to the heart of what makes the Hub so damn special. You see, in the glamorous world of media, it's all about finding new angles. Week in and week out, we strive to capture the spirit and energy of the city in words. For this issue though, we let the camera angles do the talking, and our photographers came at Boston from every direction: from its sidewalks, alleyways, and bar rooms to its dance floors, parks, and seaports; from the North End to the South End and from South Boston to Somerville. They even got a glimpse of the entire city from the sky above during one jaw-dropping helicopter ride.

The results leave us, quite literally, at a loss for words - and prove that when calling any night in Boston "ordinary," we speak a bit too soon.