Rendering an object and compositing it into a photo is very common. Once you have your object modeled the way you want and textured, it's all about matching up three things. If you can match the lighting, shading, and angle of your model to that of the photo, then the results should look pretty good.

If you're using Maya to do everything (and assuming things haven't changed much since 2009), you'll probably want to use Maya's "Use Background" material. It allows the assigned surface to pick up color from the camera's background color or image plane. You can probably google it to find out more about it and how to use it. Just keep in mind that my cg knowledge is about 5 years old so my advice might be outdated. Either way, I hope this helps you get started.

Good luck on your project.

Oh yeah, if your object has reflective surfaces and you need some realistic reflections, then yeah, I'm sure IBL will be very useful.