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

Time's paean to the president's involvement in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was presented alongside a image of Trump captured from underneath while the sun positioned behind him.

The outcome, Trump claims, is ""terrible".

"The publication wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the lowest quality in history", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that resembled a suspended coronet, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. What are they doing, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to be pictured on the cover of Time and accomplished it on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has reached Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues shown in a few of his establishments.

This issue's photograph was taken by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on the fifth of October.

The perspective was unflattering to Trump’s chin and neck – a chance that California governor Newsom seized, with his communications team tweeting a version with the problematic part blurred.

{The Israeli captives in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Donald Trump's peace plan, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. This agreement might turn into a major success of Trump's second term, and it might signify a pivotal moment for that part of the world.

At the same time, a support for the president’s appearance has emerged from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to denounce the "damaging" photo selection.

It's remarkable: a photograph reveals far more about those who selected it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people obsessed with malice and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have picked this picture", she shared on her social channel.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she said.

The answer to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – might involve innovatively depicting a impression of strength stated by an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself technically is good," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted trump to look heroic. Gazing upward evokes a feeling of their importance and his expression actually looks contemplative and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair looks erased because the light from behind has bleached that section of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. Although the article's title marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and although all of the thematic components of the image are quite powerful, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The Guardian reached out to the magazine for comment.