Got roasted for my HDR edits, now I shoot everything flat

Posted a shot of an old paper mill in Gary last month and someone said my HDR looked like a cartoon. At first I brushed it off, but then I looked at my last 20 photos and yeah, they were all overcooked. So I switched to shooting raw and doing single-exposure edits, pulling highlights and shadows manually. Took about 15 trips to feel natural again, but my colors finally look like the actual place, not a video game. Anyone else get a critique that made them rethink their whole editing style?

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scott.mia9d ago

Three years ago I had the exact same thing happen with a shot of the Mackinac Bridge, guy told me my colors looked like a melted crayon. Now I'm the weirdo who shoots everything overexposed and brings back the shadows in post until the highlights are just barely clipping. Flat files are for people who want their photos to look like a spreadsheet, sometimes you need that punchy look to make a rusty gate or a cloudy sky feel like you were actually standing there. Natural is nice but it's also boring, and there's a reason everyone's phone defaults to that fake vivid setting.