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It is a positive feature in a periodical that the president has long exalted – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to Trump's role in facilitating a truce for Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was accompanied by a photograph of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun shining from the back.

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

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the picture may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his preferred network.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that resembled a floating crown, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a extremely poor picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to feature on Time’s cover and did so four times last year. The preoccupation has made it as far as Trump’s golf clubs – years ago, the publication requested to remove fabricated front pages on display at several of his venues.

This issue's photograph was taken by Graeme Sloane for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on the fifth of October.

Its angle was unflattering to Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity that California governor Newsom did not miss, with his press office tweeting a version with the criticized section pixelated.

{The hostages from Israel detained in Gaza have been freed under the initial stage of Donald Trump's peace plan, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement could be a signature achievement of his next term, and it could mark a key shift for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a defense of Trump's image has been offered by an unexpected source: the director of information at Moscow's diplomatic office stepped in to condemn the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a image says more about those who chose it than about the subject. Only sick people, people filled with spite and animosity –possibly even deviants – could have chosen such a photo", the official posted on Telegram.

In light of the positive pictures of President Biden that the periodical featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the situation is self-revealing for the magazine", she said.

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

The photograph technically is professionally taken," she notes. "They picked this image because they wanted Trump to look heroic. Looking up at a person evokes a feeling of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks reflective and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a serene moment – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has overexposed that part of the image, producing a glowing aura, she adds. Although the feature's heading marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the individual in question."

"No one likes being captured from low angles, and while all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The publication approached the magazine for comment.