“The main ethical problem with this form of street photography relates to the subject’s vanity and sense of self. When street photographers produce and publish images without the consent of subjects, they express their own creative freedom at the expense of the subject’s right to editorial control.”
The subject of the picture wants control of how they are perceived thus entering a battle with the photographer over the way their image is presented, does the person with means of creating the image get to decide how the image looks or does the subject of the image get to decide? Typically within a studio the photographer will have control, with directions being given to the subject, however the public is more of an even playing field for control over the image, with the subjects discomfort being acceptable as the photograph is unexpected, for street photographers the street is their studio so do they deserve the same level of control over the image as a photographer in the studio? Even if they haven’t asked permission to take the photograph?
With people as the subject, street photography can be compared to field recording, both capturing a moment and both blurred by the subject’s discomfort with the scenario, the discomfort of their image and the discomfort with sounds they made. Field recordings of people could be considered different to street photography in the way that capturing sounds made autonomously by the subject is different to capturing a still image where somebody has no decision of how they are perceived. This should put people being recorded at ease but it doesn’t, they often opt for verbalising their concerns with the person recording when if they really didn’t want to be perceived on a recording they could just opt to be quiet.