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It is a positive feature in a publication that Donald Trump has consistently praised – except for one issue. The front-page image, the president decreed, ""could be the worst ever".

Time's praise to the president's involvement in mediating a truce for Gaza, headlining its early November edition, was paired with a photograph of the president shot from a low angle while the sun shining from the back.

The result, he says, is "super bad".

"Time Magazine wrote a quite favorable story about me, but the picture may be the lowest quality in history", Trump wrote on his social media platform.

“My hair was erased, and then there was an object above my head that appeared as a suspended diadem, but extremely small. Really weird! I have consistently disliked being captured from low angles, but this is a awful image, and it should be denounced. What is their goal, and why?”

The president has expressed no secret of his desire to appear on Time magazine's front page and achieved this on four occasions in the previous year. This fixation has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – in 2017, the editors demanded to remove mocked up covers exhibited in some of his properties.

The latest edition’s photo was shot by a photographer for Bloomberg at the presidential residence on 5 October.

The perspective highlighted negatively Trump’s chin and neck – an opening that California governor Newsom took advantage of, with the governor's office tweeting a version with the problematic part blurred.

{The living Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been liberated under the initial stage of Donald Trump's peace plan, in exchange for a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement might turn into a major success of his next term, and it might signify a pivotal moment for the Middle East.

At the same time, a defence of Trump's image has come from a surprising origin: the spokesperson at Russia’s ministry of foreign affairs intervened to denounce the "revealing" picture decision.

It's amazing: a image exposes those who chose it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people filled with spite and resentment –possibly even deviants – could have selected such an image", the official wrote on her social channel.

"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 publication", she said.

The answer to the president's inquiries – what did the editors intend, and why? – might involve artistically representing a sense of power according to a picture editor, an Australian publication's photo editor.

The image itself is well-executed," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted Trump to look commanding. Looking up at a person gives a sense of their majesty and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost somewhat divine. It's uncommon you see photos of Trump in such a peaceful state – 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, creating a halo effect, she says. Even though the story’s headline marries well with his facial expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the person photographed."

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

The Guardian reached out to the periodical for comment.