Five guys take the same photo for 40 years - Updated

By midday Wednesday, it was time for the main event.

They took the latest picture on a 79-degree day worthy of a travel brochure cover. The fivesome dickered over their posture and froze as the photos clicked off on a Nikon D800 camera. They were seated in the same order and in the same poses as they've been striking since 1982.

A hat always rests on Rumer-Cleary's lap or knee. Molony holds up a jar in his right hand. Burney's right hand rests inside his right knee.

"It's nice to get back here and know that the cancer was not going to eliminate what we're doing," said Burney. It's about friendship.

The close bonds exhibited in the last photo, in 2017, once again brought a frenzy of interest to the laid-back quintet.

The five guys told CNN they ended up in a German museum exhibit on friendship. Their photo was displayed in Costco's magazine.

Once again, their images went viral, spinning around social media sites where their appearance was both mercilessly dissected and praised.

"There are some dumb quotes you can never put in any articles," said Wardlaw.

"There were responses to (three of us) going shirtless. Some said we looked pretty good, and it was brave after 50."

Four of the friends are 59 years old. Rumer-Cleary is 58.

Rumer-Cleary called the attention the photos have generated surreal and says at times, strangers will stop him. "It's happened to me for a couple reasons," said the software engineer who founded Occam Networks. "I'm 6-foot-6 and I have facial hair. They won't pick it out right off the bat. 'You look familiar, I can't tell why.'"

The five friends, all graduates of Santa Barbara High School, took the first photo in the now-familiar pose in their late teens with an automatic camera timer in 1982.

Their reunions take place at the Copco Lake cabin built by Wardlaw's grandfather in 1970.

They've fished, hiked, barbecued, picked berries for homemade pies and pranked each other over the years. Molony described late night knocks on walls, firecrackers tossed into a bedroom in retaliation and relentless teasing.

Dickson confessed he nicknamed Wardlaw "Wedge" because of his definition of the shape of his friend's head after a haircut.

"I hated the nickname," Wardlaw said. "So, it stuck."

Dickson is the only one who still lives in Santa Barbara, where he runs a tourism website SantaBarbara.com. Molony is a New Orleans-based photographer. Rumer-Cleary is retired and lives in Portland, Oregon. Wardlaw is a filmmaker and photographer who lives in Bend, Oregon.

Burney, an Air Force veteran, enters his 23rd year of teaching in the fall in Northern California.

The cancer survivor does not worry about the future of the photo and his health.

"But I do have trepidation over sitting on that railing," Burney said.

"As we age, so does the railing. We get a little older, heavier. That bench and railing sits about 30 feet up. I'm worried one day about hearing it crack."

Such talk led to gallows humor and Burney showing a picture of the tumor pulled from his leg,

"It looks like a tri-tip," Burney chuckled, referring to the triangular-shaped cut of meat popularized in Santa Barbara County.

The friends all smiled and almost in a chorus said, "Well, it does."

After four decades of jokes and friendship, it's only fitting that they made fun of the tumor that almost ruined their photo tradition.

The grumpy little guy on the far left aged the best

Kind of sweet and said at the same time.

I love this story and admire that they went back to their original photo with some of them shirtless.

This makes me sad. Aging sucks.

Yes, R5. At some point, even average joes were beautiful in youth but we don't realize it until we are too old to appreciate it.

I'd say it's only in the last 5 years that all their looks fell apart. Especially the beefy one in the sunglasses. What you really see in these men is the loss of beautiful glowing youthful skin and healthy glossy hair. Tragic.

They look a little less miserable as the years go by. Nice to keep those friendships going for 40 years. Pretty rare.

Unless there's one of them doing the princess Diana is dead scream, I don't care.

The one on the far right went from cute to meh to back to cute again.

The interesting thing for me is that over time the men's looks changed in maybe unexpected ways. As R10 notes, one might start well, fade, then shine again later - and do it was with most of them. There wasn't just the one good-looking guy who was always that (even when he wasn't any longer), the dynamic shuffled around over time

The other interesting thing of course is the friendship of 40 some years and the tradition of reassembling the group. It's a convenient device for books and tv and film, but I can't think of any friends who do something like this. I've had older friends who created an annual luncheon date with sn old friend or two whom they would not see otherwise. But decades of doing the same reunion is remarkable. And - Stephen King stories to the contrary - it's an unlikely prospect for those of us who have moved around and have friends made at different phases of our lives as we moved to different places.

Very cool

Second from the right aged hard in the last five years. He was holding up pretty good.