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This is a glowing article in a periodical that Donald Trump has consistently praised – with one exception. The front-page image, Trump declared, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's praise to Trump's role in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, headlining its early November edition, was accompanied by a photo of the president captured from underneath while the sun behind his head.

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

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

“They removed my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that appeared as a floating crown, but an very tiny one. Truly strange! I always disliked taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. What is their intention, and why?”

The president has expressed no secret of his desire to be pictured on the cover of Time and accomplished it multiple times in the past year. This fixation has made it as far as his golf courses – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages shown in a few of his establishments.

The most recent cover image was taken by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on the fifth of October.

The perspective did no favours for his chin and neck area – a chance that the governor of California Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with his communications team tweeting a version with the offending area pixelated.

{The Israeli captives in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement might turn into a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a support for the president’s appearance has been offered by unusual quarters: the director of information at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs stepped in to criticise the "damaging" picture decision.

It's remarkable: a photo reveals far more about those who chose it than about the individual pictured. Only sick people, people driven by hatred and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have picked this picture", she shared on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the same publication displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she noted.

The response to the president's inquiries – why did they choose this, and why? – might involve innovatively depicting a sense of power says Carly Earl, a media professional.

The photograph technically is professionally taken," she notes. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their majesty and his expression actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a calm instance – the photo appears gentle."

The president's hair looks erased because the light from behind has overexposed that part of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. Although the feature's heading complements his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are quite powerful, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The news outlet approached the periodical for a statement.