But if I were to make any other comment (From my unskilled eye),im worried about it being bang in the middle (sorry)......?[/QUOTE]
Thanks Andrew. Guidelines like not putting stuff in the middle are very useful, but not carved in stone. After you can paint by the rules, you can start to do some pushing the boundaries of the rules.
So lets look this one over. First this is a 5x7 study, and the bird is lifesize. so there's not much choice where it has to fit. Here are some tricks I used to offset it. First notice there is a strong diagonal in two directions. Diagonal movement is the most dynamic of all composition, you can see it in spades in the Baroque Era of art. Second notice there is a strong focal pt, on the eye both contrast and color, and that falls in the area of the picture plane that is near what is called the rule of Thirds, you can look that up, it a way of dividing the canvas in thirds both directions where the imaginary lines cross ( like tic tac toe) is the sweet spot to put your focal pt. Third Ive used the background to create more movement, and melded edges, and used some of the background color in the bird to create more unity, so there is not a pasted on effect of a bird on a background, but a movement of light in space.
All of those things help over ride the bang in the middle thing. But thats still a good rule to follow most of the time.