Google has made a post on their Adsense blog clarifying some of the confusion around putting images near adsense.

They have said, Wait for it, images near adsense are NOT allowed.
Images are allowed on the page, But not in a way where they align with the adverts.

I never knew this. Is this posted very recently or a year ago? How does this effect the placement of ads? I mean placing ads near an image will bring clicks easily?