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This is a positive feature in a magazine that Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The front-page image, Trump declared, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's paean to the president's involvement in mediating a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a photo of Trump taken from below and with the sun behind his head.

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

"Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that appeared as a hovering tiara, but an very tiny one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a terrible picture, and should be criticized. What is their intention, and why?”

The president has expressed obvious his ambition to appear on Time’s cover and accomplished it multiple times in the past year. The obsession has reached Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the magazine asked him to remove fake issues exhibited in a few of his establishments.

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

The perspective highlighted negatively his chin and neck area – an opening that the governor of California Gavin Newsom seized, with the governor's office sharing an altered image with the problematic part blurred.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been liberated under the first phase of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement may become a signature achievement of the president's renewed tenure, and it could mark a key shift for that part of the world.

Simultaneously, a support for Trump's image has emerged from unusual quarters: the director of information at the Russian foreign ministry stepped in to criticise the "revealing" picture decision.

It's amazing: a photo exposes those who picked it than about the individual pictured. Only sick people, people driven by hatred and animosity –perhaps even perverts – could have selected such an image", the official wrote on her social channel.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the story is simply self-incriminating for the publication", she noted.

The response to Trump’s questions – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – could be related to creatively capturing a sense of power says a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They selected this photo because they wanted the president to look commanding. Gazing upward evokes a feeling of their importance and the president's visage actually looks reflective and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a peaceful state – the image has a softness to it."

His hair appears to “disappear” because the light from behind has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she explains. Although the story’s headline pairs nicely with his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and even if all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the appearance are unflattering."

The news outlet reached out to Time magazine for feedback.