Ah. You are probably a bit irritated and referring to something that doesn't exist.
Technicians know their trade. When they say something we better listen.
Some examples. I was out riding my mountain bike, and snapped these. I like them. Posted on a forum, and all the technicians could do was grizzle about the blown highlights.
Look at the crushed up blacks and lack of shadow detail in these.
How about the excessive motion blur displayed here?
That's abysmal photography according to the technicians
Without knowing what are their comments, I can't have an opinion.
In my experience very few take any delight in pointing out deficiencies. Mostly, deficiencies are pointed out in an attempt to help.
I don't consider "closest representation" to be synonymous with "replicate." The act of replicating something is closer to reproducing it. A representation of something can be intentionally and obviously different from the thing being represented.
Exposure is light intensity of the scene at the sensor. It's objectively determinable and measurable. A close representation is inherently subjective which makes the phrase, "closest representation," not synonymous with exposure...proper or otherwise.
I like the echoes of the receding geometry in the first photo. I also like the subject's positioning in the last and the shutter dragging while panning to call attention to the subject's movement.
Exposure is only the beginning. Of course "closest representation" is far from synonymous with exposure; but technically and technologically it starts with ETTR
But so is vision, or at least it may be. We know that not all people see things the same way (colorblindness, for example). We know the mind fills in gaps in our vision, like the point in the center where it is blocked by the optic nerve (if I remember my biology properly). A photograph can stir emotions and memories just as a real sight does. If we consider the part of the definition that says "copying" does that mean a perfect copy? I don't think it does since "copy" has degrees, hence we say a perfect copy or an exact copy. A copy can be imperfect. I would say a photo can replicate a scene. Not perfectly. Then again, the reproducing part of the definition could be said to negate that, since you are producing again.