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It is a glowing story in a magazine that Donald Trump has consistently praised – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, he stated, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's paean to the president's involvement in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a image of the president captured from underneath while the sun shining from the back.

The outcome, Trump claims, is ""terrible".

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that resembled a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown no secret of his desire to appear on Time magazine's front page and achieved this multiple times in the past year. The preoccupation has reached Trump’s golf clubs – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues shown in several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was captured by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on 5 October.

Its angle was unflattering to his chin and neck area – an opening that California governor Newsom seized, with the governor's office posting a modified photo with the offending area pixelated.

{The living Israeli hostages detained in Gaza have been liberated under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. This agreement could be a major success of Trump's second term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a support for Trump's image has emerged from an unexpected source: the director of information at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to condemn the "self-incriminating" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a image exposes those who chose it than about the subject. Just unwell persons, people obsessed with malice and resentment –perhaps even perverts – could have chosen such a photo", Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she noted.

The response to his queries – what did the editors intend, and why? – could be related to artistically representing a feeling of authority according to a picture editor, a media professional.

The image itself technically is good," she notes. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look heroic. Looking up at a person evokes a feeling of their grandeur and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a peaceful state – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has bleached that section of the image, creating a halo effect, she explains. And, while the story’s headline marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and while all of the artistic aspects of the image are highly effective, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The publication contacted the periodical for feedback.