His portrait, entitled ‘Samuele’, forms part of a series inspired by a white marble portrait statue of Roman Empire dictator Julius Caesar.

The portraits are of “i vechietti”, a group of elderly gentlemen with Italian heritage who live on the Mid North Coast. 

"There is a bunch of Italians in Port Macquarie and I found out these gentlemen used to catch up every Friday morning to have a coffee and a bit of a chat so I shot this one in the coffee shop during one of those meetings,” Mr Grammatica said.

Mr Grammatica said the project is designed for viewers to notice the detail in each portrait.

“I adopted a typology approach, producing a suite of images shot in a consistent, repetitive manner,” he said.

“I wanted the emphasis to be on comparison and analysis, prompting us to pause and reflect on similarities and subtle differences between the subjects.”

He was honoured to be announced as the major acquisitive prize winner.

"I've been following the arts in the Mid North Coast and I saw that there was this competition and I thought this portrait that I had been doing would be a good fit for this competition.

"I was really lucky to get the major prize,” Mr Grammatica said. 

The Pix from the Stix welcomed 92 entries across eight categories: lie of the land, faces I have met, natural environment, manmade, not your normal photo, absence of colour, Gloucester postcards and junior.

The task of judging and making selections for each category was made by Ben Howland.

Mr Howland is originally from Gloucester and currently works as a professional photographer in Newcastle.

He was invited to judge by the GACCI Pix from the Stix Committee.

The Pix from the Stix exhibition will run until Sunday, July 16.

The view the rest of the works in Mr Grammatica’s series, visit www.ronniegrammatica.com.