Photo by Mike Simons

This project started as a scribble in a notebook. The initial idea, meeting at least one new person every single day of the year, I hoped would help me re-connect to the part of Oklahoma where I grew up and where I'd worked as a news photographer a few years earlier.

I didn't want this project to reflect news events of the year or pop culture. Collecting these images and building the mosaic is a combination of art and documentary. Each image is important on its own. It represents a random collection of people, photographed in their homes, churches, jobs or on the street, but the collection of pictures represents the community on a larger scale. Documenting us. Our little corner of the larger world in 2012. The complete tapestry is as important as each of the portraits.

Looking at the 2012 calendar and trying to imagine getting a portrait every single day seemed daunting before I started. Photo Editor Christopher Smith and I refined the idea through several conversations at the end of last year. We picked a consistent, vertical composition, always using a 50mm lens and decided that the discipline of looking for a picture every single day was of utmost importance. I'm not allowed to stockpile pictures and then release them on a different day.

I'm not looking for people who stand out in a crowd. The majority aren't famous or in positions of power. They're just Everyday People, like me. They are your neighbors, your co-workers, your kids' teachers, the guy who prepared your food or the people you drove past on your way to work. They are people who love their work or live for their past-times. They are people with plenty to say or just enough time for a picture. Through these portraits I'm getting to know the city.

I'm meeting an interesting and eclectic group of people.

-- John Clanton, Tulsa World multimedia producer