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This is a positive story in a magazine that Donald Trump has frequently admired – with one exception. The front-page image, the president decreed, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time's praise to Trump's role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was presented alongside a photo of the president taken from below while the sun behind his head.

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

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“My hair was obscured, and then there was an object above my head that appeared as a suspended diadem, but extremely small. Really weird! I have consistently disliked being shot from underneath, but this is a awful image, and it merits criticism. Why did they choose this, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to feature on Time’s cover and did so on four occasions in the previous year. The preoccupation has reached his golf courses – previously, the magazine asked him to remove mocked up covers on display at some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was taken by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on October 5.

The shot's viewpoint highlighted negatively his chin and neck area – an opening that California governor Newsom seized, with the governor's office tweeting a version with the problematic part blurred.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been liberated under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement might turn into a signature achievement of Trump's second term, and it could mark a pivotal moment for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a defense of his portrayal has been offered by a surprising origin: the director of information at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "damaging" picture decision.

It's amazing: a photograph reveals far more about those who chose it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people obsessed with malice and animosity –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", she wrote on the messaging platform.

Considering the favorable images of President Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for Time", she said.

The explanation for his queries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a feeling of authority says an imaging expert, a media professional.

The photograph technically is well-executed," she notes. "They selected this photo because they wanted the president to look commanding. Looking up at a person creates an impression of their grandeur and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's uncommon you see photos of Trump in such a serene moment – the image has a softness to it."

Trump’s hair seems to vanish because the rear illumination has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. And, while the article's title complements Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

"No one likes being captured from low angles, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are not complimentary."

The publication reached out to the magazine for comment.