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It is a glowing feature in a magazine that Donald Trump has long exalted – with one exception. The magazine's cover photo, he stated, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's praise to Trump's role in mediating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a photograph of Trump shot from a low angle while the sun behind his head.

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

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

“They eliminated my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an remarkably little one. Really weird! I consistently avoided taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a extremely poor picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed no secret of his desire to feature on Time’s cover and did so multiple times in the past year. The obsession has extended to his golf courses – previously, the publication requested to remove mocked up covers shown in a few of his establishments.

The most recent cover image was captured by a photographer for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

The perspective was unflattering to the president's jawline and throat – a chance that California governor Newsom seized, with his press office sharing an altered image with the criticized section obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages detained in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The deal might turn into a major success of Trump's second term, and it may represent a pivotal moment for that part of the world.

Meanwhile, a support for his portrayal has been offered by a surprising origin: the spokesperson at Moscow's diplomatic office stepped in to criticise the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo says more about those who chose it than about the subject. Only sick people, people driven by hatred and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", she posted on her social channel.

Considering the favorable images of President Biden that that magazine featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she added.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to creatively capturing a sense of power stated by a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself technically is good," she explains. "They picked this image because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person creates an impression of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks reflective and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a peaceful state – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Although the feature's heading marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the subject matter."

Few people appreciate being shot from underneath, and although all of the thematic components of the image are quite powerful, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The news outlet approached Time magazine for a statement.