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It is a favorable feature in a magazine that the president has consistently praised – except for one issue. The front-page image, he stated, ""could be the worst ever".

Time magazine's praise to Trump's role in mediating a ceasefire in Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was presented alongside a photo of the president captured from underneath and with the sun positioned behind him.

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

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the photo may be the Worst of All Time", the president posted on his social media platform.

“They removed my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that appeared as a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. What are they doing, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown obvious his ambition to appear on the cover of Time and did so on four occasions in the previous year. This fixation has reached his golf courses – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues on display at several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on October 5.

The perspective did no favours for Trump’s chin and neck – a chance that the governor of California Newsom took advantage of, with his press office sharing an altered image with the problematic part obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages detained in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Donald Trump's peace plan, in exchange for a release of Palestinian detainees. This agreement might turn into a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it could mark a key shift for the region.

At the same time, a defense of his portrayal has come from unusual quarters: the spokesperson at Moscow's diplomatic office stepped in to condemn the "damaging" picture decision.

"It’s astonishing: a photo says more about those who picked it than about the person in it. Just unwell persons, people filled with spite and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have chosen such a photo", she shared on the messaging platform.

"And given the complimentary photos of President Biden that the periodical featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the situation is self-revealing for the publication", she added.

The answer to the president's inquiries – why did they choose this, and why? – might involve innovatively depicting a sense of power stated by an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself technically is good," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look heroic. Gazing upward evokes a feeling of their grandeur and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a peaceful state – the picture feels tender."

Trump’s hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has overexposed that part of the image, creating a halo effect, she explains. Even though the feature's heading complements his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

Nobody enjoys being shot from underneath, and although all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the appearance are not flattering."

The news outlet approached the magazine for a statement.