How to make a "Release"

I got the idea for this picture for quite a long time and eventually I got the chance to put it into action, it took me about 9 days of editing and processing. I'm not really content with the final result but thats my state with each of my picture anyway.

Meaning of the pic:
Long story short.. I meant this pic to convey that reading emancipates keys which releases ideas caged in your mind.. and much more ...( Hint side note: I really hope u did not need to read discerption of this pic coz I hoped u regard it and see how u'd react with it and what is you impression of it).

Anyway,I made the tree and the cages and the keys on real paper with real pencil as you see:

I did not scan it I rather took a picture of them with the camera so it'll have shadows and creases which will make nice effect, after opening them on photoshop made each object individual image, regarding the tree I repeated the squares of the original white sheet as a background, then added it as a layer on the basic pic of the model, justified it so it'd be on the neck.

The tree seemed a bit plane or flat so I used the burn brush to add some depth, you can understand a lot from the picture above.

Regarding the  cages and the keys I did not use the "magnetic select" or any of those brushes coz they often prove failure , instead I added each as a new layer then erased the outlines.

and thats all.

Oh and expect more confusing pix on flickr, as I am intellectually a bit confused and it seems that all my future ideas are rather confusing.

Eventually it's best regarded with Radiohead's House of cards: 

Salvation is your Destination Recipe

 This picture was taken in a mosque in El Moez Street, we -me, Di and another photographer friend of ours Freska- had a photography tour there and had a blast, this pic was one of the great results of this tour.

 While processing it I was basically listening to Radiohead's The Gloaming (Listen?) which gives a great sense of something like there is somebody on a long passage and he's hypnotizingly being sucked to the other side.

 Anyway, I've used a really simple editing program which my dad got with his scanner or his photo printer I cant remember, the photo was originally scaled as a portrait by the meaning it's tall and narrow :) .. but thanks to my brand new obsession with the 500x500 scale I did not crop it, but instead I added about 3 cm from the left side and roughly 1 cm from the right side, and with the stamp brush repeated some selected pits on the empty sides, regarding the Colour: I made it B&W and honestly I cant remember how I made the degradation of blue & brown/green, regarding model looking rather like sketch I've only used the burn and sharp brushes.

Salvation is your Destination

Another obsession of mine is attaching each pic with a musical piece, and this one in my opinion is best observed with Muse's Nishe :

Written by : Ni