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It is a favorable story in a periodical that Donald Trump has long exalted – with one exception. The cover picture, he stated, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time magazine's tribute to Trump's role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, featured on its November 10 cover, was presented alongside a image of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun positioned behind him.

The result, he says, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a relatively good story about me, but the image may be the lowest quality in history", he shared on his social media platform.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that appeared as a suspended coronet, but an extremely small one. Truly strange! I consistently avoided taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a terrible picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

Trump has made no secret of his desire to be pictured on Time magazine's front page and accomplished it on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the editors demanded to remove fabricated front pages on display at a few of his establishments.

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

Its angle was unflattering to the president's jawline and throat – a chance that the governor of California Gavin Newsom did not miss, with his press office sharing an altered image with the offending area obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been released under the initial stage of Trump's ceasefire agreement, together with a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement might turn into a defining accomplishment of Trump's second term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

Simultaneously, a support for the president’s appearance has come from a surprising origin: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to denounce the "damaging" picture decision.

"It’s astonishing: a photograph exposes those who selected it than about the subject. Just unwell persons, people filled with spite and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have picked this picture", Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram.

"And given the complimentary photos of President Biden that the periodical displayed on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the situation is self-revealing for Time", she noted.

The explanation for the president's inquiries – what did the editors intend, and why? – could be related to creatively capturing a sense of power stated by an imaging expert, a media professional.

The photograph technically is professionally taken," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Gazing upward creates an impression 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 serene moment – the photo appears gentle."

The president's hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she says. Although the feature's heading marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are quite powerful, the visual appeal are not flattering."

The Guardian approached the periodical for a statement.