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This is a positive article in a periodical that the president has long exalted – with one exception. The magazine's cover photo, Trump declared, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's tribute to Donald Trump's part in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, headlining its early November edition, was presented alongside a photo of the president taken from below while the sun behind his head.

The effect, he says, is ""extremely poor".

"Time Magazine wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the photo 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 resembled a floating crown, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I consistently avoided taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a extremely poor picture, and should be criticized. What is their intention, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown obvious his ambition to feature on Time’s cover and did so four times last year. This fixation has reached his golf courses – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues exhibited in a few of his establishments.

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

The perspective was unflattering to the president's jawline and throat – a chance that California governor Newsom seized, with the governor's office posting a modified photo with the criticized section obscured.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been freed under the first phase of Trump's ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement could be a major success of Trump's second term, and it could mark a key shift for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a support for the president’s appearance has come from a surprising origin: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to condemn the "damaging" picture decision.

It's remarkable: a photograph reveals far more about those who selected it than about the subject. Only sick people, people driven by hatred and resentment –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the situation is self-revealing for the publication", she said.

The explanation for his queries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to creatively capturing a sense of power stated by a picture editor, a media professional.

The photograph technically is well-executed," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look commanding. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their majesty and the president's visage actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see photos of Trump in such a peaceful state – the picture feels tender."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the sunlight behind him has washed out that area of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. Although the feature's heading marries well with his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The news outlet reached out to Time magazine for feedback.