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

It is a positive story in a magazine that the president has long exalted – with one exception. The cover picture, Trump declared, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's paean to Donald Trump's part in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a photograph of the president captured from underneath while the sun behind his head.

The effect, the president asserts, is ""extremely poor".

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the most awful ever", the president posted on his social media platform.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that resembled a hovering tiara, but an remarkably little one. Quite bizarre! I consistently avoided taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and merits public condemnation. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to appear on the cover of Time and achieved this four times last year. The preoccupation has made it as far as Trump’s golf clubs – previously, the publication requested to remove fabricated front pages on display at several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was captured by a photographer for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on October 5.

Its angle highlighted negatively his chin and neck area – a chance that California governor Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with his communications team posting a modified photo with the criticized section pixelated.

{The hostages from Israel detained in Gaza have been released under the initial stage of the president's diplomatic initiative, alongside a release of Palestinian detainees. The deal may become a major success of Trump's second term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for the region.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has come from unusual quarters: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "damaging" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo says more about those who picked it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have picked this picture", Maria Zakharova shared on the messaging platform.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that the same publication featured on the front, even with his age-related challenges, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she said.

The response to Trump’s questions – why did they choose this, and why? – could be related to artistically representing a impression of strength says an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The photograph technically technically is good," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look commanding. Staring up at someone gives a sense of their majesty and his expression actually looks thoughtful and almost a bit ethereal. It's rare you see pictures of him in such a serene moment – the picture feels tender."

His hair looks erased because the sunlight behind him has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she explains. Even though the story’s headline pairs nicely with his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and while all of the conceptual elements of the image are very strong, the appearance are not flattering."

The Guardian reached out to Time magazine for comment.