I know it is a long time since your post and you may not see my reply. However I am compelled to say how much your post resonated with me. The one thing that annoys me about photography is the self opinionated know alls who make comments like the one you describe. Unfortunately if we as amateurs expose our photographs to a wider audience than ourselves we have to endure this. I decided to take on a flickr moderator who decided my image was unacceptable for his precious group when all he had to do was open the image and look at it. He claimed to be too busy to do that. I finally decided to give up and just accept this bullying.

Indeed, I have several shots with these colours. Maybe the judge was jealous