Well, it looks like a photo because it's heavily based on a photo. Some of these mechanical pieces may require that the photographic references be posted to stay in the gallery (avatar as well). The photo-based work that I have seen the references for, you've pixelled into enough to be ok, but without the refs it's hard to tell which side of the line some of your stuff falls on.

nice wiring ))

Wow. Looks like a photo or 3D-render for me.

Can you show the stages of a work, please? I want try to learn your awesome technique.

I'd say this is one of your better pieces (all of which are great) It literally looks like metal and the dithering doesn't remove from the smooth appearance too much.