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This is a favorable article in a publication that the president has frequently admired – with one exception. The front-page image, he stated, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to the president's involvement in facilitating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was accompanied by a photo of Trump captured from underneath and with the sun shining from the back.

The effect, Trump claims, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the image may be the most awful ever", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an extremely small one. Really weird! I consistently avoided taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. Why did they do this, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown no secret of his desire to feature on the cover of Time and achieved this four times last year. The obsession has made it as far as the president's resorts – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers exhibited in some of his properties.

The latest edition’s photo was captured by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on October 5.

Its angle highlighted negatively Trump’s chin and neck – a chance that California governor Newsom did not miss, with the governor's office sharing an altered image with the problematic part blurred.

{The living Israeli hostages in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a release of Palestinian detainees. This agreement could be a defining accomplishment of Trump's second term, and it might signify a pivotal moment for the region.

Simultaneously, a support for the president’s appearance has come from a surprising origin: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to denounce the "revealing" photo selection.

It's remarkable: a photograph says more about those who selected it than about the individual pictured. Only sick people, people obsessed with malice and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", she wrote on her social channel.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the periodical displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for the publication", she noted.

The explanation for his queries – why did they choose this, and why? – could be related to innovatively depicting a feeling of authority says an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself is well-executed," she says. "They picked this image because they wanted the president to look commanding. Staring up at someone gives a sense of their importance and the president's visage actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a calm instance – the photo appears gentle."

Trump’s hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she adds. Even though the story’s headline pairs nicely with the president's look in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are highly effective, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The publication approached the periodical for feedback.