Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Matinee: 'Historical Ischiopagus Twins Operation'
25 July 2026
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 666th in our series of Saturday matinees today: Historical Ischiopagus Twins Operation.
In this 4:36 video, photographer Ed Eckstein talks about documenting the historic separation of conjoined twins by Dr. C. Everett Koop (who would later become the Surgeon General) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in September 1974. It was one of the first such operations.
Koop had selected Eckstein to shoot the operation separating Clara and Alta Rodriguez, who were born in the Dominican Republic on Aug. 12, 1973. They were ischiopagus twins, joined at the pelvis, sharing a stomach.
A Catholic missionary group had discovered the children in Santa Domingo and contacted Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which agreed to donate all of their services, he tells us.
The procedure took 13 hours, eight of them in surgery. But their hospitalization was a year during which they underwent other reconstructive surgeries.
Eckstein shot about 13 rolls of film during the operation. But he focuses on one shot of the twins before the separation. They are surrounded by the medical team of some 26 doctors and nurses, which he printed a bit darker than the twins illuminated by the bright surgical lights.
He shows us the contact sheet and the negative as well. He shot hand-held with a 35mm Leica, he says. He likes to think of his approach as "non-fiction photography."
He shows a few more images of the operation but it's that initial one that has stuck in his mind. It seemed like a painting to him because of the lighting. "I don't think I'll ever be able to photograph anything like that again," he says.
He became emotionally involved with the twins, who he met before the operation and followed afterwards.
The operation was a success. But one year after the operation, Alta, who was the weaker of the two, choked on a bean and died. Clara flourished, however, giving birth to a baby boy in 1994, 20 years after the surgery. A photo of them ends the video.