Ferdinand's passion for photography started in his early childhood. Being raised in Africa, he was inspired to capture the splendor of its scenery and wildlife; and the realization that emerged from reading store catalogs and magazines at breakfast during his teens, in that all those images had to be photographed by someone. The result lead to a career that started with his first job as a portrait photographer at 16. In 1980 Ferdinand entered Sheridan College's commercial photography program, graduating in 1982 with the Canon award as top student.

From 1982-1989 Ferdinand worked for various Production Studios within Toronto. Starting as an assistant photographer, and quickly becoming a senior photographer. While in the production environment all the images were captured in large format ranging from 4X5 to 11X14 film. In the late eighties and early nineties images were captured to final size. Pre-dating the digital world all photographs had to be precise in color, tonal values, lighting, and composition to prevent added production costs.

In 1988 Ferdinand started his own studio "FBM Photography" and has worked for clients in all industries; Eatons, Sears, Consumers Distributing, Sony, Sanyo, Timex, Diamond Information Centre, Bryston, Northern Casket, Canadian Tire, Toys'R'Us, Prince Diamonds, Platinum Unlimited, Cargil, Markham Mall, Maple View, Quality Meats, Quaker, Niko Cosmetics, Lancaster,.. and numerous others. While Ferdinand has specialized in jewelry and small product photography, his work has also encompassed fashion, and industrial work.

A new chapter in photography started in 1997 with the commitment to switch from film to digital image capturing. In the early days of digital photography the learning curve was steep, and creative thinking was a must to produce images of acceptable quality. In todays commercial environment the quality of digital imaging has far surpased what was optainable on film. Now the only limitation is ones creativity.