This really wasn't hard to do at all and really requires only minimal PS skills. Someone else asked how we did it so later tonight or tomorrow I will write up what we did both in camera and post to create the image.
Printable View
It is very cool. I like it and pretty much understood your symbolism even before the detailed explanation.
Very interesting concept, but you overdid the contrast ratio
We are planing on doing another shoot (Well 9 more actually) similliar to this for a project we agreed to take on. So rather than write up how we did this picture, the enxt shoot from start to finish I will document exactly how we did it right down to taking pictures of how we setup the lighting etc. The next shoot is in a week or so.