Ronald Codrai was born in the Indian Himalayas in July 1924, and served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. In 1946 he was posted to Cairo, from where he travelled to many parts of the Arab world. He later joined an international oil consortium and moved to what was then known as the Trucial States, now the United Arab Emirates, where he lived and worked between 1948 and 1955.
After eight years in south-eastern Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, Ronald Codrai spent twenty-four years in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon before returning to the UK. During this time he also visited other Arab countries and had the privilege of meeting twenty-five Arab heads of state.
Ronald Codrai passed away on 9th May, 2000 and was survived by his wife Pamela and their two sons, Christian and Justin.
This website is dedicated to Ronald Codrai's photographs. Its purpose is to continue his mission of sharing with the public his photographs of his days in the United Arab Emirates (then the Trucial States) between 1948 and 1955 - just as development was about to forever transform the land and way of life. It is now possible to purchase prints of, or reproduction rights to, images from Ronald Codrai's Collection on this website.
The Collection forms the largest single archive of photographs of the United Arab Emirates from its pre-oil days. It covers virtually every aspect of life on the Trucial Coast at that time including photographs of every ruler of every Emirate plus many of their families and offspring - many of them now rulers themselves....more. Please click on Gallery to browse through samples from the Collection.
Formats and Prices You are invited to purchase prints from the Collection in various formats - printed on various papers, mounted, un-mounted, framed or unframed and in various sizes. Some of the photographs have been published in the eight books by Ronald Codrai and his photographs appear in Museums in Dubai and Sharjah. Prints of these published photographs as well as prints from currently unpublished photographs are offered for sale. Your order can be dispatched to anywhere in the world.
If you would like to purchase prints, see more images from the Collection or discuss using images for a specific display, advertising, filming or publishing project, please contact us. You will receive samples matching your requirements from which to choose. Please click on sample pricing to view our prices and the alternative sizes available.
'Seafarers of the Emirates' by Ronald Codrai
"…………… in the late 1940’s, only a comparatively few boats left for the pearling banks. Few, that is, compared with earlier in the century when upwards of four thousand boats manned by tens of thousands of men were engaged in harvesting the pearls in the Gulf. The decline started at the beginning of the 1930’s when the Japanese developed and started marketing the "cultured” pearl. At about the same time, the main markets in the West for the Gulf’s pearls were hit by both recession and a change in fashion followed by World War II. The Gulf’s trade in pearls never recovered from these catastrophic events and its final demise came with the arrival of the era of oil.” – Extract from Seafarers of the Emirates by Ronald Codrai and published by Motivate Publishing.
This website would not be complete without remembering Christian Codrai, Ronald Codrai's eldest son, who passed away on 2nd Febraury, 2006 in Rome at the age of 50.
Christian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq in 1955 and grew up in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon whilst schooling in the UK. He went on to study law at Buckingham University in England before being called to the Bar. He secured a job working for an English law firm in Brussels for a few years followed by a brief return to the Bar in London before making a permanent move to Rome to join IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (a United Nations agency). He rose to become IFAD's General Counsel and worked hard to maintain his many contacts in Europe and the Arab World.
Christian worked extensively behind the scenes assisting Ronald with his books and, following Ronald's death, in helping Justin complete two of Ronald's books and staging a number of exhibitions of Ronald's photographs. He also provided invaluable assistance and support in helping to set up this website.
He is greatly missed and the International community is the poorer for his passing.
This website would not be complete without remembering Christian Codrai, Ronald Codrai's eldest son, who passed away on 2nd Febraury, 2006 in Rome at the age of 50.