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It is a favorable story in a magazine that Trump has consistently praised – with one exception. The cover picture, Trump declared, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's tribute to Donald Trump's part in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a photograph of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun behind his head.

The outcome, Trump claims, is ""extremely poor".

"Time Magazine wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the photo may be the most awful ever", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“My hair was obscured, and then there was a shape over my head that looked like a hovering crown, but quite miniature. Truly strange! I have never liked being captured from low angles, but this is a awful image, and it deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to appear on Time magazine's front page and did so four times last year. This fixation has made it as far as his golf courses – years ago, the editors demanded to remove fabricated front pages on display at some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on October 5.

The shot's viewpoint highlighted negatively his chin and neck area – a chance that California governor Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with his communications team sharing an altered image with the criticized section blurred.

{The hostages from Israel in Gaza have been liberated under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. This agreement could be a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it may represent a pivotal moment for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defence of Trump's image has come from an unexpected source: the communications chief at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to condemn the "self-incriminating" image choice.

It's amazing: a photograph says more about those who selected it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and animosity –perhaps even perverts – could have selected such an image", she shared on the messaging platform.

Considering the favorable images of President Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she noted.

The explanation for Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a sense of power according to a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They picked this image because they wanted Trump to look heroic. Gazing upward creates an impression of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks contemplative and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see images of the president in such a peaceful state – the photo appears gentle."

His hair looks erased because the light from behind has bleached that section of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Although the story’s headline marries well with 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 quite powerful, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The Guardian reached out to Time magazine for a statement.