The Red Room in the Bonni Benrubi Gallery reminds me of a line from the glorious 17th-century poet George Herbert: “A box where sweets compacted lie.” It is only 10 or 11 feet wide and about seven feet deep — a small room even by Manhattan standards — but the sense of intimacy and the sophisticated red paint on the walls make it a fine place for viewing the right photographs. The work presently up in the Red Room, 12 black-and-white images from Jason Langer’s “Secret City” series, is well served by being there.

Mr. Langer is a meticulous photographer. When still in high school, he met Michael Kenna, the greatly admired landscape photographer. Mr. Langer stayed in touch with him while in college, and, after graduation, spent five years as Mr. Kenna’s apprentice, printing many of the master’s pictures and absorbing his aesthetic. Mr. Kenna is a meticulous photographer: His images are carefully composed, the exposures are spot-on, and there is a palpable love affair with the finest nuances of light, as well as an overall aura of control. Mr. Langer has adopted these techniques for his own purposes.

The images in the “Secret City” series are consciously — maybe even self-consciously — modeled on the film noir of the 1940s and ’50s. Since no art style is without provenance, these were based on the work of various artists and photographers from around the turn of the 19th century, and Mr. Langer references them, too, in his series. For instance, Paul Strand’s picture “Fifth Avenue” (1915) is notable because the bottom of the frame starts above the waists of the pedestrians, so the top of the frame can include all of an American flag flying above them. Mr. Langer’s “Flags” (1995) captures the back of a lone male pedestrian from the waist up, and has several American flags flying above an unspecified street that might be Fifth Avenue.

The man in “Flags” is wearing an overcoat and a fedora, which means it could have been shot anytime in the last hundred years. He has his back to us and is seen in silhouette, so his identity is not clear. The camera was held low (it might have been the single lens reflex Hasselblad 500C that Mr. Langer used on much of this project) and angled up, giving the silhouetted man and the buildings and flags above him a looming presence. There is an amorphous feeling of mystery; it is not clear that anything is wrong, but it seems as if something might be wrong. Why the display of patriotic symbols in a commercial setting?

Similar to the man in “Flags,” many of the people in the “Secret City” are shot so their identities are uncertain. Even when they face forward, as in “Singer” (1994), most of their features are lost in shadow. Characteristically, the slicked down hair and the microphone in “Singer” are more redolent of the age of crooners than of today’s hip-hoppers. “Server” (2001) is a close-up of a waiter, or, rather, of the white shirt covering the chest of a waiter. We see the placket running down the center of the picture, most of the pocket, the ripples in the shirt cloth, and — most conspicuously —a black clip-on bow tie. The small section of the neck that is visible lets us know the server is black. This is not so much symbolic as visual metonymy, with the clip-on bow tie standing in for the man wearing it.

The companion image to “Server” is “Bow” (1999), a study of a waitress. It is a three-quarter view of her back seen from about the knees to her shoulders. She is anonymous, but we know she is a waitress because under her far arm she has two plastic-covered menus of the type used by diners, and she holds an order pad in her hand. The restaurant is an out-of-focus blur in the background. The most conspicuous element here is the large bow tied in back that holds up her white serving apron: It is a gorgeous bow, the perfection of a bow. The two halves are even, the two ends draped just the right length down her backside. It is the very sort of bow a young woman meant to be a princess would wear if she were made to perform menial tasks — Cinderella’s bow.

Mr. Langer’s work exploits the psychological proximity of mystery and romance. There are three sources of light in “Moonrise Over Montmartre” (2002); the sliver of moon over the 19th-century apartments, the vintage streetlamp in front of them, and one lit window. What is going on in the only apartment that still has a light on? An amorous assignation? Political or criminal skullduggery? Can’t tell. Maybe someone just can’t sleep. Maybe that is why the “Woman in Window” (2002) is there, looking down on the strings of naked light bulbs in the street below. Again, we can’t tell.

There is something in the calculated perfection of Mr. Langer’s images that keeps them at an emotional distance, but they are appealing withal. “Umbrella” (1995) looks down over and through some trees to a lone man carrying an umbrella along a city sidewalk. This is the “Secret City,” so we do not know whether this was shot in Paris or New York, and we do not see this man’s face. But we can see that he is wearing white socks, the sort of clue Mr. Langer embeds in his work to make us speculate about it, there in the safe and cozy confines of the Red Room.

Until September 15 (41 E. 57th St., between Madison and Park avenues, 212-888-6007).