'The worst of all time': Donald Trump rails against Time's 'extremely poor' cover picture.

This is a glowing feature in a periodical that Donald Trump has frequently admired – with one exception. The cover picture, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time magazine's paean to Donald Trump's part in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, headlining its early November edition, was accompanied by a photo of the president taken from below and with the sun behind his head.

The effect, he says, is ""terrible".

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

“My hair was obscured, and then there was a shape over my head that seemed like a suspended diadem, but extremely small. Very odd! I have never liked being photographed from below, but this is a awful image, and it should be denounced. What are they doing, and why?”

Trump has made obvious his ambition to feature on Time magazine's front page and achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. This fixation has reached his golf courses – in 2017, the publication requested to remove fake issues shown in some of his properties.

The most recent cover image was shot by a photographer for Bloomberg at the White House on 5 October.

The perspective was unflattering to his chin and neck area – a chance that California governor Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with his press office tweeting a version with the problematic part obscured.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been freed under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, in exchange for a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement could be a signature achievement of his next term, and it might signify a pivotal moment for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has been offered by unusual quarters: the director of information at Moscow's diplomatic office intervened to criticise the "revealing" image choice.

"It’s astonishing: a photo reveals far more about those who chose it than about the individual pictured. Only disturbed individuals, people obsessed with malice and animosity –maybe even degenerates – could have selected such an image", she wrote on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, even with his age-related challenges, the situation is self-revealing for Time", she said.

The explanation for Trump’s questions – why did they choose this, and why? – might involve creatively capturing a impression of strength according to an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

The image itself is professionally taken," she says. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look impressive. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their majesty and his expression actually looks reflective and almost a bit ethereal. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the image has a softness to it."

His hair appears to “disappear” because the sunlight behind him has bleached that section of the image, generating a radiant circle, she explains. Even though the feature's heading marries well with Trump’s expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the individual in question."

Few people appreciate being captured from low angles, and while all of the thematic components of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The Guardian contacted the magazine for feedback.