etiolate \EE-tee-uh-layt\,

transitive verb:
1. (Botany) To bleach and alter the natural development of (a green plant) by excluding sunlight.

Figures that the only word of the day that involves the exclusion of sunlight falls on the only day this week without rain. But no matter, I went for a little bike ride anyway.

It took me a while to find an idea I wanted to stick with and actually follow through. What I ended up with was a long exposure (the longest I could get in the shade on a nice day like this was about four seconds), shining a flashlight on the bright leaf you see in the photo. I'm thinking about another project that may be fun with this same idea, but you'll have to wait for that.

And by the way, did you notice the fantastic lightbox that Tyler helped me put my photos into? If not, click on the photos to see what I mean.

Hopefully some of my many readers with botany backgrounds have some good photos for etiolate. If you do, send them to me in an email!