The antique houses and buildings – all crumbling stucco walls and original wooden shutters – clamber over themselves and around the stained facade of the clock tower, away from the sea and up the valley walls to the foot of the cliff face towering above.

The tiny, charming coastal city of Atrani, on Italy’s beautiful Almafi Coast, has inspired everyone from Dutch graphic artist MC Escher to the makers of car commercials to David Infante, one of the winners of this year’s Bushey Festival Photographic Competition.

David, 61, a retired solicitor from Seer Green in Buckinghamshire, won first place in the open class category for Clock Tower, Atrani, while Pam Adsley won the Bushey digital images class for her picture Old and New at Bushey Academy, with Anne Edwards taking the prize for the Bushey Open Gardens class for Rose Garden Tulips 2.

The Gawan Vesey Cup for best picture of a Bushey subject by a newcomer went to Diane Gnani, who had two pictures commended by the judge.

David was unable to make it to the awards ceremony, at Bushey Museum last week, but is very pleased to have won.

“I’m also quite surprised because it was very much a last-minute decision to enter,“ says David. “A friend was putting some things in for the competition and said why didn’t I put a couple in too? So I got some pictures from the last time I was in Italy and was delighted to hear that I’d won.“

David holidays in Atrani most years as his father was born there and the keen photographer now knows all the best locations in the area to capture in his pictures.

“It’s a striking piece of landscape, it’s magnificent. I’ve photographed it previously in different lights, it’s something I go back to again and again. It’s a holiday resort but people often don’t get up into the hills, and they’re just stunning.“