Center of Interest

Each rendering should have only one main center of interest that the viewer's eyes are drawn to. Any other elements within the rendering should focus attention to the main center of interest.

A rendering without a center of interest can confuse the viewer. Subsequently, the viewer wonders what the rendering is all about. When the rendering has one, and only one, center of interest," the viewer quickly understands the rendering.

When there is nothing in the rendering to bring the viewer to a particular area, the viewers eyes wander. The center of interest can be one object or several objects arranged so attention is directed to one part of your rendering.

When the center of interest is a single object that fills most the rendering, such as a red door on a white house, attention is brought quickly to it. 

A person attracts attention more than anything else, and unless the person is the main object you should leave them out of the rendering. When people are included in a rendering for scale, keep them from looking in the direction of the camera. When people look at the camera, the viewer tends to look back at them. 

Center of Interest Placement

Good composition is rarely obtained by placing the center of interest in the center of the picture; it is generally a bad idea to place it there. A lot of the times it divides the rendering into equal halves and makes the rendering boring and hard to balance. By dividing the rendering into 1/3, both vertically and horizontally, and placing the center of interest at one of the intersections, you can usually create a well balanced composition.