This essay was written for Sequence, a new journal from the film-workshop and screening centre no.w.here. It discusses the films of Nick Collins from the 1970s to the present day, and aims to bring this little-known artist to wider attention. Collins was educated at Oxford (history), the Slade (film) and - less formally - at the London Film Co-op. His short and imagistic films explore a lyrical mode via firmly structural procedures that explore process as well as content. A landscape filmmaker in the experimental tradition, the essay argues that Collins' work is also related to serial music, to realist painting (as in the Italian studies of Thomas Jones) and to the tradition of lyric poetry. The essay describes ten key films from an extensive output, focussing on his unique contribution to personal documentary cinema.