MicrostockGroup

is it ever ok to center the subject? If so, explain when it will work.
randysgrandma

It often works particularly well with square format images.

It is also logical for images which are designed to create an impression of objectivity. For example images designed to look like evidence or which are designed to have a sort of snapshot aesthetic.

The centre of the frame is the natural unpretentious place for the subject to be. It is the place where people put the subject before they become infected by photo club ideas of composition - those rules which ultimately sometimes have to be unlearned.

In the end you have to rise above there being any rules and agree that a photo should look how you design it to look.

Works 100% of the time for isolations.

the old masters of photography or painting would put objects in the centre to symbolize staticity, immobility, balance. but for movement, they would use one of the points of the principle of thirds, imaginary triangle, or vanishing points.
so, yes, if you want to say, i am going nowhere ( a man with a broken down car). or time is standing still (a broken clock). BANG U R DEAD (barrel of a gun ), Uncle Sam want YOU . all dead on centre.

yes..that's where you want to place it.