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This is a glowing story in a magazine that Trump has long exalted – with one exception. The cover picture, Trump declared, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's tribute to Trump's role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, headlining its early November edition, was accompanied by a image of Trump taken from below and with the sun behind his head.

The effect, he says, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", the president posted on Truth Social.

“My hair was erased, and then there was a shape over my head that appeared as a suspended diadem, but extremely small. Truly strange! I have never liked being photographed from below, but this is a super bad image, and it merits criticism. What is their goal, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to appear on the cover of Time and did so on four occasions in the previous year. This fixation has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the publication requested to remove fake issues exhibited in a few of his establishments.

This issue's photograph was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

Its angle did no favours for his chin and neck area – an opening that the governor of California Newsom did not miss, with his press office tweeting a version with the problematic part pixelated.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. This agreement could be a major success of the president's renewed tenure, and it might signify a pivotal moment for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a defense of Trump's image has come from an unexpected source: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "self-incriminating" photo selection.

It's amazing: a photograph says more about those who chose it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people driven by hatred and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", Maria Zakharova posted on the messaging platform.

Considering the favorable images of President Biden that the same publication featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for Time", she added.

The explanation for the president's inquiries – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with artistically representing a impression of strength according to an imaging expert, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The photograph technically technically is good," she notes. "They selected this photo because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person creates an impression of their grandeur and the president's visage actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the light from behind has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Even though the feature's heading pairs nicely with Trump’s expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the individual in question."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and although all of the thematic components of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The Guardian reached out to the periodical for a statement.