One of the things I stress when teaching photography is never put the horizon in the middle of the frame unless you have a good reason. The reason is it breaks the image into half. It is much more desirable to put the horizon on the bottom or top third of the frame. This is one of the elements that makes a picture a portrait, not a happy snappy.
In this image I was laying down on the sand in order to have the coconut in the foreground and the ocean in the upper third of the frame.