  A quark model approach to the photoproduction of vector mesons off nucleons
is proposed. Its starting point is an effective Lagrangian of the interaction
between the vector meson and the quarks inside the baryon. This paper develops
the formalism and highlights the dynamical roles of s-channel resonances. It is
demonstrated that the proposed approach is ideal to support searching for the
missing resonances in the vector meson photoproduction experiments proposed at
TJNAF.
