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It is a glowing article in a magazine that Donald Trump has frequently admired – but for one catch. The front-page image, the president decreed, "may be the Worst of All Time".

Time magazine's paean to the president's involvement in facilitating a ceasefire in Gaza, leading its 10 November issue, was accompanied by a photograph of the president taken from below while the sun shining from the back.

The outcome, he says, is ""extremely poor".

"Time wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the image may be the most awful ever", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They removed my hair, and then had an object hovering on top of my head that looked like a hovering tiara, but an remarkably little one. Really weird! I consistently avoided taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a extremely poor 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 achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. The obsession has extended to his golf courses – previously, the publication requested to remove mocked up covers shown in several of his venues.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by a photographer for a news agency at the White House on the fifth of October.

The shot's viewpoint did no favours for Trump’s chin and neck – an opportunity that the governor of California Newsom did not miss, with his communications team sharing an altered image with the criticized section pixelated.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of Donald Trump's peace plan, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The deal may become a major success of his next term, and it may represent a pivotal moment for the region.

Meanwhile, a defence of the president’s appearance has been offered by a surprising origin: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to criticise the "self-incriminating" picture decision.

It's amazing: a photo exposes those who selected it than about the subject. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and hatred –possibly even deviants – could have chosen such a photo", she shared on her social channel.

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

The answer to Trump’s questions – what did the editors intend, and why? – may be something to do with innovatively depicting a sense of power says a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look impressive. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost slightly angelic. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

The president's hair looks erased because the sunlight behind him has washed out that area of the image, generating a radiant circle, she adds. And, while the feature's heading pairs nicely with Trump’s expression in the image, "you can’t always please the person photographed."

Nobody enjoys being photographed from below, and although all of the artistic aspects of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are not flattering."

The Guardian reached out to the magazine for feedback.