🔗 Share this article

This is a positive feature in a publication that Trump has long exalted – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, the president decreed, ""might be the most terrible in history".

Time's praise to Trump's role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, leading its 10 November issue, was paired with a photograph of the president captured from underneath while the sun positioned behind him.

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

"The publication wrote a relatively good story about me, but the photo may be the most awful ever", the president posted on Truth Social.

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a suspended coronet, but an very tiny one. Quite bizarre! I never liked taking pictures from low perspectives, but this is a extremely poor picture, and should be criticized. What is their intention, and why?”

Donald Trump has shown clear his wish to appear on Time’s cover and achieved this multiple times in the past year. This fixation has extended to the president's resorts – in 2017, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages on display at several of his venues.

This issue's photograph was captured by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the White House on 5 October.

The perspective highlighted negatively the president's jawline and throat – an opportunity that the governor of California Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with his press office posting a modified photo with the criticized section obscured.

{The Israeli captives held in Gaza have been released under the opening part of Trump's ceasefire agreement, alongside a freeing of Palestinian inmates. The arrangement might turn into a defining accomplishment of his next term, and it might signify a strategic turning point for that part of the world.

At the same time, a defense of Trump's image has come from an unexpected source: the communications chief at the Russian foreign ministry came forward to condemn the "revealing" photo selection.

It's amazing: a photo exposes those who chose it than about the person in it. Only disturbed individuals, people driven by hatred and resentment –possibly even deviants – could have picked this picture", Maria Zakharova shared on the messaging platform.

In light of the positive pictures of President Biden that that magazine displayed on the cover, despite his physical infirmity, the case is self-damaging for the magazine", she noted.

The response to Trump’s questions – why did they choose this, and why? – might involve innovatively depicting a feeling of authority stated by a picture editor, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself is professionally taken," she explains. "They chose this shot because they wanted trump to look impressive. Staring up at someone evokes a feeling of their grandeur and Trump’s face actually looks thoughtful and almost somewhat divine. It’s not often you see pictures of him in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

His hair seems to vanish because the light from behind has washed out that area of the image, creating a halo effect, she explains. Even though the feature's heading pairs nicely with his facial expression in the image, "it's impossible to satisfy the subject matter."

"No one likes being shot from underneath, and while all of the conceptual elements of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are not complimentary."

The publication approached the magazine for a statement.