In 1935, Collins moved to Greenwich Village, and over the next five years she studied photography informally with Ralph Steiner and attended Photo League events.

Camera and Travel about Hoboken, New Jersey, she was invited to work for the Foreign Service of the United States Office of War Information.

In line with new emphasis on multiculturalism, she contributed to photographic coverage of African Americans as well as citizens of Czech, German, Italian and Jewish origin.

[1] In 1944 Collins worked freelance for a construction company in Alaska before travelling to Africa and Europe on government and commercial assignments.

Thereafter she worked mainly as an editor and a writer covering civil rights, the Vietnam War and women's movements.