I looked into this once ... it is very confusing. You have to enter one of their competitions and if you are allowed in, you pay $50 to list one image with their RM. House contracts are a thing of the past as far as I can tell.

I'm still a contributer after being invited to join back in the days when Flickr and GI had that aggrement.

I can upload 50 images/week, however I don't do it anymore, since I don't like their exclusivity requirements.
I can make much more by spreading my photos over the main 5 microstock agencies

Could you explain the Exclusive Requirements? Say I go to an event, do they want rights to everything from that event, exclusively for Getty Images? If I do a shoot of a model and concept, do all versions of that set belong to them?

I couldn't seem to find a reference to that on the pages? Maybe someone who works for them can explain?

Also you can bet on this part: "Please note: due to the large number of inquiries and submissions we receive, we are unable to respond to each inquiry and submission. " Which translated means you can apply and there's a good chance you will never hear back from them.  It's called tacit rejection, without notice.

I'm still a contributer after being invited to join back in the days when Flickr and GI had that aggrement.

I can upload 50 images/week, however I don't do it anymore, since I don't like their exclusivity requirements.
I can make much more by spreading my photos over the main 5 microstock agencies

I looked into this once ... it is very confusing. You have to enter one of their competitions and if you are allowed in, you pay $50 to list one image with their RM. House contracts are a thing of the past as far as I can tell.

You don't pay to list a photo however photographers can choose to pay to have a photo of their choice  listed or promoted

I'm a Getty photographer. I have images in two different collections, their "Moments" collection which used to be the "Flickr" collection, and their "Photographers Choice" (PC) collection.

In 2008 I submitted images to Getty and was invited into their PC collection which at the time was a pay to play scheme. It cost $50 per image to submit. However, your first submission was a reduced rate of $25 per image, up to 10 images. Also, for every image you sold, you could submit one for free. So that's what I did, I submitted 5 images at $25 each, then would submit a new image after I sold one.  I never wanted to pay $50 for an image, not worth it.

Then a few years back Getty was scouring Flickr and inviting some photographers to contribute to the Flickr collection, and I was invited. It was very limiting in how many images you could contribute every month, it was taking months and months to review images and then every six months or so they would stop accepting images for six months at a time. Finally, they stopped accepting images for over a year but wouldn't tell their photographers one way or another if the collection was permanently closed.

Now Flicker has become Moments and things so far are much better, accepting 50 images a month, much shorter acceptance times. Also, I just found out that the PC collection stopped charging their $50 per image fee a year ago, I never got the email. So now I'm back to submitting to the PC collection.

Your images on Getty cannot be placed anywhere else, and any similar image cannot. So as an example images from the same shoot, same model and clothing, location and time of day, that sort of thing. You can use the same model in another shoot but the images can't look the same as the previous submitted shoot. So yes it's restrictive but for me, my return per image is at least 3 times better on Getty than it is on all the micros and Alamy combined. However, I have fewer than 10% as many images on Getty as I do on the micros so I still make a lot more from the micros.

That link above is the way to submit however, things are different then they used to be. Looks like you now enter a competition based on an image brief / need that they're looking for.

So I guess the best way to apply is to try to go via people you know who know someone...or maybe there are active content hunters somewhere.

I brought this up in a different post but I think Getty still accepts new photographers but they have to be established advertising photogs, no run of the mill stock shooters like us.    I skim Getty images all the time looking at photographers work, plugging their names into Google and looking at their websites, and 9 times out of 10 the shooters are displaying advertising/assignment work on their website. So I guess it probably is who you know, or maybe they'll contact you when you shoot the next Coke a Cola campaign.

Quit a few years ago now I had a long conversation with a Getty images shooter, he started long before digital, long before micro stock, and he talked about the money Getty stock photographers used to make. High six figures and he didn't work full time. He was going to Art Center in Los Angeles when he started and quit school because he making money hand over fist. He said he got the gig just by showing Getty some images he took of his girlfriend on the beach.

He's no older than me and i was shooting at the same time he was but, I never knew about stock back then. Wish I did.

Could you explain the Exclusive Requirements?

Here is an extract from the GI contributor aggrement:

All Content submitted to Getty Images is on a Content exclusive basis. This means that Content submitted to Getty Images and any other content that is substantially the same (a �Similar�) may not be licensed to any third party unless Getty Images has notified you that it has been rejected. However, on a non-exclusive basis, You may use Content and any Similars for your personal or self promotional, non-commercial use, including sharing Content on photo sharing websites, blogs or social networking websites for personal or self-promotional/non-commercial use, provided that you do not compete with or limit the rights granted to Getty Images under the Agreement. Also on a non-exclusive basis, you may use Accepted Content that is available for license through a royalty-free license model in connection with the sale by you of prints, t-shirts and other retail merchandise where the Accepted Content is the focus of the product, so long as you are not licensing or giving away rights to the Accepted Content for anything other than such merchandising. On a co- exclusive basis with Getty Images you may use Content and any Similars for limited edition, signed and/or numbered fine art prints (though Getty Images retains the exclusive right to sell and license prints not signed or numbered).

....

5.2 Similars. For Content from an Editorial Event, a Similar means an item of Content that is part of a package depicting one topic, issue or event and that is often but not necessarily taken at approximately the same location as other Content