Q. This photographer has a special relationship with one of the women in this photograph. Which woman is it and how can you tell?

A. For over 40 years the photographer Nicholas Nixon has photographed these four sisters (The Brown Sisters). The woman second from the right, subtly singled out in many of the photographs, is his wife Bebe. In the photograph above, Nixon places his own shadow onto Bebe, and in the photograph below, her face is more prominently lit by sunlight. She also appears very close to the “visual center” of every photograph.

If you view more of these photographs, you will notice that Bebe’s return gaze is somewhat different from her sisters’ (it is more direct and engaged in many of the photographs – she looks into Nixon instead of at him), providing an additional clue to the viewer that she has a more intimate connection with the photographer. These photographs say much about what endures and changes between people and about the nature of love and family (and ultimately about an unshakable marital bond).