Thank you, everyone, for your nice comments on these portraits.
Jan and Thomas, yes, they were both taken with the Pinkham & Smith Visual Quality lens. I was playing around with different quality light sources. I used a large softbox for Jim's portrait, whereas I used a standard reflector with honeycomb grid for Cody's. You can make that out in the catchlights. The diffusion of the lens definitely takes the edge off the harder lighting and I think the combo works quite nicely.