Ok, so after showing Christopher a number of shots from the last 5 tests, he pointed out that it all needs to be lit correctly since things can look flat, and shot correctly and thus what I've done is wrong.
The following resources should get me on track...
Re: The Photographic Triangle
http://www.flickr.com/groups/technique/discuss/17163/
Re: Rule of Thirds
Re: Composition
http://photoinf.com/General/NAVY/Photographic_composition_Balance.htm