'The most terrible ever': Trump rails against Time's 'super bad' cover photo.

It is a positive feature in a magazine that Donald Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's paean to the president's involvement in mediating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a photo of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun behind his head.

The result, Trump claims, is ""extremely poor".

"Time Magazine wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that appeared as a suspended coronet, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I always disliked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown clear his wish to be pictured on Time’s cover and accomplished it multiple times in the past year. The preoccupation has extended to the president's resorts – years ago, the publication requested to remove fake issues shown in several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

The shot's viewpoint did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – an opportunity that California governor Gavin Newsom seized, with his communications team tweeting a version with the offending area obscured.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been released under the first phase of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The deal might turn into a signature achievement of his next term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for that part of the world.

Meanwhile, a defence of his portrayal has come from a surprising origin: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photograph reveals far more about those who picked it than about the person in it. Just unwell persons, people driven by hatred and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have chosen such a photo", she shared on her social channel.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that the periodical featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the story is simply self-incriminating for Time", she noted.

The response to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with creatively capturing a impression of strength says a picture editor, a media professional.

The image itself technically is good," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted trump to look commanding. Staring up at someone creates an impression of their grandeur and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It’s not often you see photos of Trump in such a peaceful state – the picture feels tender."

The president's hair looks erased because the sunlight behind him has washed out that area of the image, producing a glowing aura, she says. Even though the feature's heading pairs nicely with the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

Few people appreciate being photographed from below, and while all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the visual appeal are not complimentary."

The Guardian contacted the magazine for comment.