Editor’s note: Our series Enterprising Spirit documents how businesses and workers are managing the economy’s slow return to life after its sudden shutdown in March – and adapting to new challenges ahead.

Shuttered alongside local schools by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the nearly 100-year-old photo service LEO’s Photography spent the summer coming up with a new plan.

What was quickly obvious was that photographers still needed to interact with pupils for Picture Day, even if that interaction occurred behind masks and physical barriers.

“There’s something to be said about somebody actually getting that emotion out of a student, and to take a picture that the kid likes,” said Sam Nelson, human resources manager at the Spokane Valley-based company that has been shooting portraits since 1923. “How to get a kid to show his teeth, make a kid smile.”

So the company, which retains the name of founder and early Spokane Valley photographer and chronicler Leo Oestreicher, set to work to develop a contactless method of snapping school pictures. While business has declined “significantly” with the closing of schools last spring and the virtual start to the school year in Spokane, Nelson said the company has developed a safe method to take photos without the traditional exchange of an order form, and with photographers behind a vinyl barrier.

“It’s been extremely difficult to manage. We’re trying to figure out a way to basically keep the lights on until schools are back in session,” Nelson said.

Many of LEO’s photographers are seasonal employees, and most are parents of students themselves, Nelson said. That provided some flexibility in scheduling when schools were suddenly ordered shut in the spring.

“We were able to photograph about half of the schools that we typically photograph in the spring. It all depended on where the dates laid for the schools,” Nelson said. “When this shutdown happened, we thought it was going to be a couple of weeks.”

LEO’s worked on keeping its full-time employees on staff, Nelson said, while seasonal photographers were let go once it became clear in-person classes wouldn’t resume until at least the fall. The studio is dependent upon the school space to set up their backdrops and lighting, Nelson said, and any shoots that are happening this fall will take place in schools that have partially or fully reopened.

The company has also received requests to take photos when students arrive to pick up laptops or other items for distance learning. It’s also been important to shoot photos of staff and faculty members, Nelson said, for the school districts’ IT folks to provide access to buildings and ensure safety.

“Our schedule for the next month has changed rapidly in just the past two days,” Nelson said Thursday.

The demand for school year memories has not waned, Nelson said, even during a pandemic that is likely to be unforgettable.

“Parents still want us to give the same memories,” he said. “We feel like we have a program that works.”