My older brother once paid his way through the Brooks photo academy by working in a well-known retail store in Santa Barbara catering mostly to pros. Those kinds of jobs have always paid miserably. But it allowed him to acquire his Linhof and Rollei gear, lenses, and darkroom equip, at a considerable discount, as well as led to a lot of valuable connections as he turned pro. But then he landed a job as a Rolls Royce driver for an extremely wealthy old Montecito couple, which paid much better. That brought more connections. In fact, once he realized the opportunities, his commercial photo career was mostly put on hold when he became a realtor in Montecito. A single estate sale would bring more commission than several years of pro photo work. But he did both in parallel awhile because he loved photography per se. Then the first great fire occurred there, outright destroying many of those lavish estates; and that destroyed his real estate income too.