As a foreigner I never understood the novote sentiment in the US. You aren't voting for either candidate because you dislike them, so who would you actually vote for? AOC? RFK Jr? Bernie? Does your ideal candidate even exist in reality yet? All a no vote does is take away your own rights in your country, while the rest of the world moves on without you.
For what it's worth, both parties can be trash but one party actually can be shamed to doing the right thing once in a while.
The stated point listed in the article was to prove that manual photography has merit and that 'nothing is more fascinating than Mother Nature herself', which he proved by winning the people's choice award. He didn't say the disqualification was inappropriate nor did he criticize the contest for inconsistent rules? It seems quite clear that he expected to be removed from the contest after making his statement, actually.
Personally I hope this doesn't become a trend of machine generation and manually shot/created work spoiling each other's contests.