Ian Ivey
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 p.1 #2 · Logo Design Help for Wedding Photographer | |
Bless your heart. I'm afraid my reaction is overwhelmingly negative, so please read this as though I'm saying it in a pleasant, gentle tone of voice, not a critical one, so that it doesn't seem unduly harsh.
There's a lot going on. Actually, that in itself is a problem -- the logo is so busy the eye doesn't know where to look. And the dimensions of the logo don't provide an obvious starting point.
Design element issues:
The flowers and dotted lines will be impossible to make out when you present this at a normal (small) logo size. The gradients will not reproduce well at small sizes or when using the logo as a solid color (e.g., all black or all white, as in a common watermark). The design looks like the kind of design someone fairly new to logo design might produce, having recently learned several Illustrator tools.
Since you seem to be a people photographer, not a macro photographer, this design element doesn't communicate any meaningful concept about your photography to me. Of course, that's true of probably 90% of photographers' logos, but that's often because the designers lacked imagination or understanding of the photographer's business and how to represent it. Still, the very intricacy of this thing implies care and thought, so I find myself wondering what it means.
Typographical issues:
I congratulate you for having the discipline to stick to one font. I'm sorry I have to follow that up with the observation that this one does not convey a professional image. In particular, the all-caps lettering of "PHOTOGRAPHY" has an awkward feel. Partly this is related to its placement: it looks a bit orphaned down there: centered, spaced away from everything else, smaller but not obviously deliberately smaller. But mainly it's the shape of several of the letters, especially the "T".
I'd definitely be on the lookout for a better font. Whether you stick with this one or choose another, consider making "photography" lower case and much smaller, and maybe nudge it way up under the first part of your last name, before the descender of the "g" in your name. Or any number of other places, but not centered-bottom. Or just eliminate it altogether.
There's more to discuss if you plan to keep this as a starting point, but to answer your question, no, I don't think it seems professional; it seems like a new photographer's first logo designed by herself or a friend or a 99 designs spec designer. You're smart to recognize the risk of accepting your friends' praises at face value. Now you have a contrasting opinion. 
I'll say one more thing: it's really hard for photographers to develop good logos until they've been in business (not just in hobby-activity, but in actual, tax-paying, profit-generating business) for a couple of years. During that early phase, most photographers don't really know who they are as photographers, much less as business people. We usually spend some time imitating others before we start distinguishing ourselves. It's when we begin to forge our own distinctions and exclusive purpose that logo design becomes more important, and in certain important ways, easier.
So maybe don't sweat it for a year, and just either use your name in a simple configuration, or even use this thing, knowing you'll figure out how you should change it later, when you know what your logo should say about you beyond the generic "I want you to see me as a professional."
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