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It is a positive feature in a magazine that Donald Trump has frequently admired – with one exception. The cover picture, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time magazine's praise to Trump's role in mediating a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was presented alongside a photo of Trump taken from below and with the sun shining from the back.

The result, the president asserts, is ""terrible".

"Time Magazine wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the image may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a extremely poor picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition 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 fabricated front pages shown in several of his venues.

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

The perspective did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – a chance that California governor Newsom took advantage of, with the governor's office tweeting a version with the criticized section obscured.

{The hostages from Israel in Gaza have been released under the initial stage of Trump's ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a release of Palestinian detainees. The arrangement may become a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for the region.

Meanwhile, a defense of Trump's image has emerged from unusual quarters: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "damaging" 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 resentment –perhaps even perverts – could have selected such an image", the official wrote on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of President Biden that the same publication displayed on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she added.

The explanation for his queries – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve artistically representing a impression of strength according to Carly Earl, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself technically is good," she explains. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look heroic. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their grandeur and the president's visage actually looks reflective and almost somewhat divine. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a serene moment – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair appears to “disappear” because the rear illumination has washed out that area of the image, generating a radiant circle, she says. Even though the feature's heading marries well with the president's look in the image, "you can’t always please the individual in question."

Few people appreciate being captured from low angles, and although all of the thematic components of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are unflattering."

The Guardian contacted Time magazine for a statement.