It is becoming ever more difficult to take photos of people in public spaces without their consent. It is not just that this kind of street based work is increasingly targeted by security guards defending corporate property and power.

It also raises issues of personal privacy. Privacy is increasingly seen to be under siege in a digital world where the digital camera is everywhere and almost and almost everyone is a photographer.

Our culture, as a result, has become increasingly preoccupied by surveillance, distrust, hysteria over child sexuality, and growing political tensions. The artist photographers right to shoot, display and sell street photographs without the permission of anonymous subjects is being rolled back. People don't like being watched unawares.

It's not just the photographic gaze of the street photographer: there is also the relentless logistics of data gathering of surveillance technologies of Google and Facebook; digital CCTV cameras, Facial Recognition Software, directional microphones and 3D body scanning.

The street photographer represent visually the individual moving through space; or rather in-between spaces, between home and work--- laneways, walkways, tunnels, underground walkways, train stations, and bus routes. Often these areas of normality and banality allow little, to no human interaction.

The Docklands in Melbourne is an example. Even though you can wander along the river this development is basically the privatisation of the waterfront. Medibank's managing director George Savvides observes:

Since our move to Docklands, the district has become a highly concentrated commercial hub for business, sport and high-rise residents. But I just don't get the lack of design and creativity in the streetscape, where 50,000 people walk, exercise, commute, eat and socialise - or try to. No trees, no birds, no grass, a lack of community but a plethora of structures.