The molded part shown here is a worm gear . While such gears generally have one or two helical 'teeth' wrapping around their perimeters, these have seven, making them a bit more exotic and fun to photograph. Chicago's Winzeler Gear excels in producing such complex shapes and this photo was created for their website and other materials.
The gear was photographed on color transparencies in studio three times in different but related positions to create this montage. Each film was scanned and the resulting image outlined and placed onto a master file background of black. The gears were rotated and sized until the right relationships were established.
The final file was then emailed to Design Design, a local shop putting the Winzeler site together. Once completed, a whole host of interesting images will be on view at Winzelergear.com. This one is worth checking out, as it treats gears as art and incorporates them into some pretty amazing pieces of work.