🔗 Share this article

This is a glowing feature in a magazine that Trump has frequently admired – except for one issue. The magazine's cover photo, Trump declared, ""could be the worst ever".

Time magazine's paean to the president's involvement in mediating a truce for Gaza, featured on its November 10 cover, was paired with a image of the president captured from underneath and with the sun positioned behind him.

The effect, the president asserts, is ""extremely poor".

"The publication wrote a fairly positive story about me, but the photo may be the lowest quality in history", he shared on Truth Social.

“They eliminated my hair, and then had a shape drifting on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an remarkably little one. Truly strange! I always disliked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a extremely poor picture, and merits public condemnation. Why did they do this, and why?”

The president has expressed clear his wish to feature on Time’s cover and did so on four occasions in the previous year. This fixation has extended to Trump’s golf clubs – years ago, the magazine asked him to remove fabricated front pages on display at several of his venues.

The most recent cover image was taken by Graeme Sloane for a news agency at the presidential residence on the fifth of October.

Its angle did no favours for the president's jawline and throat – an opening that California governor Gavin Newsom took advantage of, with the governor's office posting a modified photo with the offending area pixelated.

{The living Israeli hostages detained in Gaza have been released under the opening part of the president's diplomatic initiative, in exchange for a Palestinian prisoner release. The arrangement could be a signature achievement of his next term, and it could mark a key shift for the region.

At the same time, a defense of the president’s appearance has emerged from an unexpected source: the spokesperson at the Russian foreign ministry intervened to denounce the "self-incriminating" picture decision.

It's remarkable: a photo exposes those who selected it than about the person in it. Only sick people, people filled with spite and animosity –possibly even deviants – could have chosen such a photo", the official shared on her social channel.

"And given the complimentary photos of Biden that that magazine used on the cover, notwithstanding his health issues, the case is self-damaging for the publication", she said.

The explanation for his queries – why did they choose this, and why? – may be something to do with creatively capturing a sense of power stated by an imaging expert, Guardian Australia’s picture editor.

"The actual photo itself technically is good," she says. "They selected this photo because they wanted trump to look heroic. Looking up at a person evokes a feeling of their majesty and his expression actually looks thoughtful and almost somewhat divine. It's rare you see photos of Trump in such a calm instance – the image has a softness to it."

His hair seems to vanish because the rear illumination has bleached that section of the image, producing a glowing aura, she says. And, while the article's title complements his facial expression in the image, "one cannot constantly gratify the individual in question."

"No one likes being photographed from below, and although all of the thematic components of the image are highly effective, the aesthetics are unflattering."

The publication reached out to Time magazine for comment.