R - R - R

Real research required.

On a number of fronts.
1. Try a transplant - extract pointy-shooty cassette, replace with photographic cassette.
2. Do not "wander and click" so often, LOOK for subjects. I'll probably continue as a Journal rather than  Coffee-table book, and that which amuses me, but that does not exclude photography.
3. Try and establish the cause for the difference twixt what I have and this.
One possible reason is light. Despite perching on a South facing window cill, it's vastly more etiolated than when it arrived.
As to the "sun tan" it may be, literally, that, or it may be a pH thing. There's a UK owners' group I can tap the brains of.
I placed both it, and the Dionaea outside, near the compost bucket, HEAVING with Fruit-flies. I know this one was reasonably successful, LESS sure about old venus trap.
I tried peering dwn the funnel, but, possibly because I used pointy shooty & couldn't see the shot, but I was getting the top "leaf", OR the "soil" surface in focus.
I can, just about, see the hairs on the top "lid"/leaf/thingy.