Álvarez exclusively employed black and white film for her pictures, rather than color photography, as a means of allowing fuller development between monochrome contrasts. Color did not suit her documentary style of composition. As a photojournalist, Álvarez focused on candid revelations, seeking to impart the social meaning, without duplicating other photographers' work. For example, in one assignment where she went to Papantla, in Veracruz, to shoot the "Danza de los Voladores," she ignored the dancers photographed by others, instead taking pictures of pilgrims coming to attend the ritual, the processional entrance of the sacred pole, and an animal sacrifice. The distance between herself and the subject candidly captures them in a manner that intimately captures their experience without judgment. Her preference was to avoid "the news", instead documenting her surroundings in their historical context. In her advertising work, Álvarez used chiaroscuro techniques to highlight aspects of the products, as if they were still life paintings. From 1936, she produced photomontages, always using her own photographs to make the composite, rather than images from the published work of others. Many of the photomontages from her later career were posters.