Five friends have been snapping the same photo every five years since 1982. They recently published their most recent photo for public viewing.

The ninth image for their ‘Five Year Photo Project’ was captured by John ‘JD’ Dickson, Dallas Burney, Mark Rumer-Cleary,

John ‘Belves’ Molony, and John ‘Wedge’ Wardlaw last month. They visited the same spot they always did, a prefabricated cabin at Copco Lake on the California–Oregon border.

With the exception of Rumer-Cleary, who is 58, the other three men, all of whom are 59, hypothesized that

the picture might have been of four friends that year when Burney, the man in the middle, was given a liposarcoma diagnosis.

He had a big malignant tumor from his left leg removed in 2019. He can still walk, but he has trouble getting around.

He thanks God for keeping him alive by saying, ‘It’s nice to be back and know that the cancer wasn’t going to stop what we’re doing.’

The foursome had not been together since their previous shot was taken in 2017. The epidemic and Burney’s cancer scare made it challenging for the group to reunite.

The men got together to eat ‘Wedge’ tacos, which Wardlaw creates by stuffing hard taco shells with meat and frying them in a pan that gets so hot that

he has to wear safety glasses and a glove to protect himself from splatters, the night before they took their most recent photo.

The five sat on the terrace railing on a Wednesday in the same arrangement and positions they have been using since 1982.

To make the photos as similar to the originals as possible, some of them even started to wear the same outfits a few photographs previously.

The buddies, who all attended Santa Barbara High School, took their first photo with a camera timer when they were 19 years old.

Their gathering place, a cottage at Copco Lake, was constructed in 1970 by Wardlaw’s grandpa.

JD was the only one who had a real 35mm camera on their trip to the lake in 1982, and he was the one who recommended they take some group pictures.

Wardlaw recommended taking a duplicate of the original photograph when he was able to persuade all five men to visit the lake once more in 1987. He has stolen all of them after the first.

We decided to do it again in five years after taking the photo and reviewing it.

Wardlaw responded that they had considered a few ideas when asked how long they intend to take the photo.

‘We’ll keep taking pictures until no one is left, and then maybe John Dickson’s son will take a picture of a

deck railing where we used to sit that is empty.’’These boys are fortunate to have such a close relationship with one another.