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This is a positive story in a periodical that the president has frequently admired – except for one issue. The front-page image, Trump declared, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time magazine's praise to the president's involvement in facilitating a Gaza ceasefire, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a image of Trump shot from a low angle and with the sun behind his head.

The outcome, the president asserts, is "super bad".

"Time wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that looked like a suspended coronet, but an very tiny one. Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from below viewpoints, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. Why did they do this, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to be pictured on the cover of Time and achieved this multiple times in the past year. The preoccupation has reached the president's resorts – years ago, the editors demanded to remove fake issues shown in several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was taken by a photographer for a news agency at the presidential residence on October 5.

Its angle was unflattering to his chin and neck area – an opportunity that the governor of California Gavin Newsom did not miss, with the governor's office posting a modified photo with the offending area obscured.

{The Israeli captives detained in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of the president's diplomatic initiative, in exchange for a release of Palestinian detainees. This agreement could be a signature achievement of his next term, and it could mark a strategic turning point for the Middle East.

At the same time, a defense of his portrayal has come from unusual quarters: the director of information at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs came forward to criticise the "damaging" photo selection.

"It’s astonishing: a photograph reveals far more about those who picked it than about the individual pictured. Just unwell persons, people driven by hatred and hatred –maybe even degenerates – could have chosen such a photo", the official wrote on Telegram.

Considering the favorable images of Biden that the periodical featured on the front, despite his physical infirmity, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she noted.

The response to the president's inquiries – what were Time’s editors doing, and why? – may be something to do with artistically representing a impression of strength according to a picture editor, a media professional.

The image itself is professionally taken," she notes. "They chose this shot because they wanted the president to look commanding. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their majesty and his expression actually looks contemplative and almost somewhat divine. It's uncommon you see images of the president in such a serene moment – the picture feels tender."

The president's hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has overexposed that part of the image, producing a glowing aura, she adds. Although the feature's heading marries well with the president's look in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

"No one likes being shot from underneath, and even if all of the artistic aspects of the image are very strong, the aesthetics are not flattering."

The news outlet contacted Time magazine for a statement.