Michael originally founded Visual Pursuit Photography in the 1980s to make his extensive photo library available to publishers. In the 1990s the office grew from offering direct stock sales to a full design studio doing book packaging, calendar and product design, etc., around his nature photography. For many years the studio also offered to magazines full story packages (text and photos). At the time Michael’s work was also represented around the world by seven agencies in the USA, Europe and Japan. In the early 2000s the business changed dramatically for independent photographers.

Two large companies, one owned by the richest man in the world at the time and one owned by a massive Wall Street private equity firm purchased almost all the independent agencies around the world. During this time all seven independent agencies that represented Michael’s images were purchased and income from these agencies was cut to a fraction of what had been the industry norm. Almost twenty years later nothing has changed, a large Chinese holding company now owns the rights to about half of the worlds historic and classic photos as well as much of what is produced currently.

Today, Michael is semi retired with images represented by Getty Images (one of the two mega agencies) he is now taking personal travel photos and has plans co-published books in the future.