There is a way to anchor float strictly to the place where it appears. In Debian you will need to install texlive-latex-recommended (for float.sty).
\usepackage{float} \restylefloat{figure}
Now you can anchor figure exactly to the place where it appears in the text by using [H] position:
\begin{figure}[H] \begin{center} \includegraphics[scale=0.4]{image.png} \end{center} \caption{Figure caption} \end{figure}
float documentation can be find on CTAN: