I'm surprised... I had the opposite reaction. The photo is so heavily mangled by post-processing that it looks unnatural, and you can see weird halos around all of the objects.
It looks unnatural, but in an synthetic, post-processed way, rather than a reflection of the artificiality of the subject.
Read your other comment and, thanks, I definitely learned something. I wasn't able to see the halos until I zoomed in, but they are definitely there, and yes it does make the photo seem mangled.
That said, I don't usually open blog posts and expect to be moved by a photo, and this one certainly did and it seemed like someone put the effort to make it a little more than ordinary. Whereas this photo moved me positively, it seems to have done the opposite for you.
If you're looking for other evidence of mangling...
Zoom out and squint. The photograph is nearly uniform gray, without light or dark parts.
Look at the shapes. The cylindrical current-limiting reactors on the right side look flat, but if you scroll down to see other pictures of them, they don't look flat in the other pictures.
It's kind of like bad kerning, or JPEG artifacts. You might not mind them much unless you know that they're there, and once you learn to recognize them it's too late and you'll never not see them.
It looks unnatural, but in an synthetic, post-processed way, rather than a reflection of the artificiality of the subject.