For the Milky Way galaxy, we cannot see the center all that well (though we are making progress). With other galaxies, we can view them in whichever direction they are showing themselves to us.

Gravitational lensing is the explanation in the Black Hole model.

The Black Eye model explains it differently because it is an enormous depression in this model. No photon can make it to the center of the enormous gravitational depression, just like no butterfly can make it to the Eye of the Storm because the Wall of the Eye will prevent them from entering.

So, photons are swatted out of the way not by the Eye but by the Wall of the Eye.

So, in the images we see in the Black Eye model, the center is black (no photons pass through) and the donut of light around it indicates the photons that got swatted into our direction, so we see them.