We study the photon induced 1520 production in the effective Lagrangian method near threshold, E LAB 2 GeV, and in the quark-gluon string model at higher energies 3 GeV E LAB 5 GeV. In particular, we study the role of the K exchange for the production of 1520 within the SU(6) WeinbergTomozowa chiral unitary model proposed by García-Recio, Nieves, and Salcedo [Phys. Rev. D 74, 034025 (2006)]. The coupling of the 1520 resonance to the N K pair, which is dynamically generated, turns out to be relatively small and, thus, the K exchange mechanism dominates the reaction. In the higher energy region, where experimental data are available, the quark-gluon string mechanism with the K Regge trajectory reproduces both the energy and the angular distribution dependences of the 1520 photoproduction reaction.