There is no such thing as a candid self-portrait. Candid photography, by definition, requires that the subject be unaware that his picture is being taken, and there is no way a person as subject can be unconscious of himself as photographer. In spite of this, five of the 19 apparently impromptu pictures in “Jessica Todd Harper: Interior Exposure” currently at the Cohen Amador Gallery include the term “self-portrait” as the first part of their titles. So these images are only apparently impromptu.

Ms. Harper constructs delicate narratives of domesticity, and photographs them so they look to be candid. Sometimes they include her and are therefore self-portraits, and at other times they are of her friends and family. The title of the show, “Interior Exposure,” points to the fact that all but two of the pictures were taken indoors, mostly in elegant homes, and the two outdoor photos are close by in private backyards. More important, the thrust is psychological, trying to tease out the relationships between people who are emotionally and physically close. Ms. Harper means to expose the interiority of her subjects, herself included.

Like all her work, “Self-Portrait with Christopher (Clementines)” (2007) is in color, in this case a digital C print, and in the fairly large size of 33 by 41 inches. Because Ms. Harper herself is seen in profile in the middle of the frame, we know the informal scene of her and her husband standing by the kitchen window is a fiction. The two are handsome young adults, Anglo-Saxon in appearance — blond, blue-eyed, well featured — and slightly heroic, since the camera is at waist level shooting up. The light comes from the window over the sink and produces delicate, veristic modeling on the two figures; it makes a contrast between the deep teal of her dress and the bright orange of the bowl of clementines on the counter, and it causes the wedge of translucent fruit Christopher holds in his hand to look as if it is lit internally.

There is rich sociological data in the picture’s details. The chintz valence is not without significance, nor the ceramic cereal bowl shaped like a crown drying upside-down by the sink with “Prince…” written on its side in gold, nor the copper cookware, nor the upscale Wegman’s polish. But that is the mise-en-scène; the drama is the ambiguous tension between the two protagonists. Ms. Harper’s body is toward Christopher’s, but her face is turned slightly away so that she is not looking at him. Her expression is reflective, internal. He stands in his white undershirt with one hand akimbo, the other poised in midair holding the translucent wedge of clementine, and he stares at her intently with his blue eyes. He seems to be contemplating a criticism, and trying to decide whether or not to say it. Or maybe he already has, and is waiting for her rejoinder. At any rate, as the two finish their breakfast, there is something fraught between them.

On the other hand, it is make-believe. We know that the picture and the story it is telling is an act, scripted and posed. But maybe the artist is telling us something she believes to be true about her relationship with this man, or about the relationships of men and women in general. “Self-Portrait with Christopher (Clementines)” is an arresting image; the viewer’s willingness to suspend disbelief is a measure of Ms. Harper’s success.

T.S. Eliot, among others, understood that an artist who has not mastered the tradition cannot be truly innovative. If an artist is steeped in the tradition, he will have absorbed the techniques of great art, and more important, he will have confronted the issues that make for greatness; work by such an artist resonates in the culture. Before she earned her master of fine arts degree in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2001, Ms. Harper had graduated cum laude in Art History from Bryn Mawr College (1997), and had studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. And way before that, according to her artist’s statement, “My mother gave my sister and me first crayons, then charcoal, and finally pastels and watercolors as she plunked us down on the floors of local museums. … Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent and Renoir were my heroes as a kid. When I went to college I … fell in love with Vermeer, Memling, Pieter de Hooch and other Northern European artists … whose charged, quiet domestic scenes haunted me afterwards.” Ms. Harper confidently draws on the past as she explores new technologies, and treats her personal concerns in a markedly different time.

“Judith and Her Children” (2006) owes a lot to her study. The mother and daughter in the background are sitting at a computer, but the feeling of intimacy derives from Mary Cassatt. The wonderful color of the child who is the center of interest in the picture — the pale flesh, the blue eyes, the pink lips — is Renoir’s contribution. The older child to the left, whose presence is felt but whose face is lost in shadow, reminds us of Rembrandt’s careful use of light and darkness. The three young women trying on white gowns in front of a mirror in “Chloe with Sybil and Becky” (2005) are descended from Sargent’s self-assured ladies.

Besides her debt to various painters, there is a tradition of tableaux vivants in photography that Ms. Harper’s work recalls, and she joins a growing roster of contemporary photographers whose families are important subjects: Nicholas Nixon, Andrea Stern, Sally Mann, and Tina Barney come quickly to mind. Ms. Harper’s work depends on artifice, but her affection for kith and kin seems real.

Until May 10 (41 E. 57th St., between Madison and Park avenues, 212-759-6740).