Lavenson was born to Amy Furth and Albert Lavenson, who was the son of German immigrants and the co-owner of Capwell Department Store in San Francisco. Growing up, Alma Lavenson attended both public and private schools in San Francisco. In 1919 she graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in psychology. Her first photos were snapshots of family and friends taken with a small Kodak camera. She learned to develop and print her negatives by watching a technician at an Oakland drugstore in the early 1920s, and from the technical information she found in popular magazines such as The Camera and Camera Craft. She traded her Kodak for a 1910 3 ¼" x 4 ¼" Ensign box reflex camera, fitting it with an inexpensive, uncorrected lens for the soft-focus quality of Pictorialism promoted by those magazines, and made weekend photographic expeditions with friends to the Oakland Estuary and Marin County. On April 22, 1922 Alma and her parents left for Europe on the Olympic covering the countries of France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Hungary, England, Belgium, and Germany. They returned October 3, 1922. In 1923 Lavenson spent seven months in Europe and kept a travel journal that she later typed and illustrated. In 1926 she traveled to Mexico, where she met Diego Rivera.

In 1930 she was introduced to Adams, Cunningham and Weston by art collector Albert Bender. Bender also wrote Lavenson a letter of introduction to give to Edward Weston. Two years later she was invited to participate in the famous Group f/64 show at the M.H. De Young Memorial Museum, although there is some uncertainty about whether she should actually be called a "member" of Group f/64, given her association with Pictorialism. The announcement for the show at the De Young Museum listed seven photographers in Group f/64 and said "From time to time various other photographers will be asked to display their work with Group f/64. Those invited for the first showing are: Preston Holder, Consuelo Kanaga, Alma Lavenson, Brett Weston." However, in 1934 the group posted a notice in Camera Craft magazine that said "The F:64 group includes in its membership such well known names as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, John Paul Edwards, Imogene Cunningham, Consuela Kanaga and several others." Lavenson was not mentioned by name in that notice, but her name is always listed as being associated with the group because of her place in the first exhibition. She was included in an exhibition of photography "by members and associates of Group f.64" held at Gallery 210, Lucas Hall, University of Missouri, St. Louis, Apr. 3-30, 1978.

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