'The most terrible ever': Donald Trump rails against Time's 'extremely poor' cover picture.

It is a favorable article in a periodical that Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The front-page image, Trump declared, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time magazine's tribute to Trump's role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was paired with a image of the president captured from underneath while the sun positioned behind him.

The outcome, the president asserts, is "super bad".

"Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the image may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“My hair was ‘disappeared’, and then there was a shape over my head that appeared as a hovering crown, but quite miniature. Very odd! I have never liked being shot from underneath, but this is a super bad image, and it deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to feature on the cover of Time and did so multiple times in the past year. This fixation has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers exhibited in several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

Its angle highlighted negatively Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity that the governor of California Newsom seized, with his press office tweeting a version with the problematic part obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been released under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, together with a Palestinian prisoner release. This agreement may become a major success of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a key shift for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a defence of the president’s appearance has emerged from a surprising origin: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to criticise the "revealing" photo selection.

"It’s astonishing: a photo reveals far more about those who chose it than about the individual pictured. Just unwell persons, people obsessed with malice and animosity –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", she shared on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of President Biden that the same publication featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the situation is self-revealing for the magazine", she added.

The explanation for his queries – why did they choose this, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a feeling of authority stated by Carly Earl, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself technically is good," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look heroic. Gazing upward evokes a feeling of their importance and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has bleached that section of the image, creating a halo effect, she explains. Even though the feature's heading complements Trump’s expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and although all of the conceptual elements of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The Guardian reached out to Time magazine for a statement.