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It is a glowing feature in a magazine that Donald Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The cover picture, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's praise to Trump's role in mediating a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a photograph of the president captured from underneath and with the sun positioned behind him.

The result, he says, is ""terrible".

"Time wrote a relatively good story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that resembled a floating crown, but an very tiny one. Quite bizarre! I always disliked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a terrible picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to feature on Time magazine's front page and did so on four occasions in the previous year. The preoccupation has reached Trump’s golf clubs – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues on display at a few of his establishments.

This issue's photograph was taken by a photographer for a news agency at the presidential residence on 5 October.

The perspective did no favours for Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity that California governor Newsom took advantage of, with his communications team sharing an altered image with the criticized section blurred.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been released under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The deal may become a signature achievement of Trump's second term, and it might signify a pivotal moment for the region.

Meanwhile, a defense of Trump's image has been offered by an unexpected source: the communications chief at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to condemn the "revealing" photo selection.

It's remarkable: a photograph reveals far more about those who chose it than about the individual pictured. Only disturbed individuals, people driven by hatred and animosity –perhaps even perverts – could have selected such an image", she shared on the messaging platform.

Considering the favorable images of Biden that the same publication displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she added.

The explanation for Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – might involve artistically representing a sense of power says an imaging expert, an Australian publication's photo editor.

"The actual photo itself is professionally taken," she says. "They chose this shot because they wanted Trump to look heroic. Staring up at someone gives a sense of their importance and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a calm instance – 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, generating a radiant circle, she explains. Even though the story’s headline complements his facial expression in the image, "you can’t always please the individual in question."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are not flattering."

The news outlet contacted the magazine for a statement.