So deeply focused

Last month, the 39-year-old dive master and underwater photographer says he became the first British photo-journalist to work underwater in Cambodia since the war ended.

Later this year he intends to be the first into Madagascar, despite the coup that is brewing there... and last year he claims he was first into Vietnam.

"I'm the only marine journalist in the magazine genre who is a member of the NUJ, but I want to build up to at least 10 firsts in this game before I start really putting my name about," says the super-confident Jaime.

"Once I set my mind on doing something I'm going to do it. Yes, I'm ambitious and some people see that as something to be ashamed of, but you have to be in this game.

"As a seriously advanced diver you're not meant to dive below 50m. At 70m the pressure is eight times what it would be on land - about 210 per cent oxygen and 1,000 per cent nitrogen. Very dangerous. I have been to 78m to chase a tiger shark. Suicidal. But then if the Wright brothers hadn't been suicidal we wouldn't be flying today," he says.

"Tell me I can't do 120 mph on the M3 - I've done 170. I have this need for speed. Forget SARS, I'm off to Cambodia. You know, you can't wrap yourself in cotton wool and wait to be 100, I'd rather have an exciting life.

"I'll never get rich doing this but it does propel me round the world and gives me the same buzz and exhilaration as loony cars. I don't know why I'm like this. Arrogance?"

Poole boy Jaime (it's Spanish for James) has always sought the high life. Educated at Ringwood Grammar School (when it was still in central Bournemouth) and Milton Abbey ("I'm a public school brat"), he decided that university wasn't having him and followed his love of loud music, drinking and fast women into the world of DJ-ing.

He enjoyed stints at Bournemouth's main clubs as Jamie St John in the late 1980s and early 90s - including East of Eden, Clouds, Madisons, The Academy and The Palace - before upping sticks and moving to Jersey where he won DJ of the Year.

Ten years ago he decided he'd had enough of playing records and returned to Bournemouth, enrolled on a photography course at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art & Design, learned to dive and, over the past four years, has re-invented himself as an underwater photo-journalist having had articles and photos published in several magazines.

"I'd had enough of DJ-ing. I never went looking for fame but it found me - that DJ of the Year thing I won, I was forced to enter by my manager getting two doormen to hold me down while I signed the forms.

"The girlfriend I had at the time left me when I packed in DJ-ing because she said I wouldn't be able to keep her in the style she'd grown accustomed to, and she went off and married someone else. Someone richer.

"Now I've got the £75,000 car, the £10,000 Rolex, the lovely house and the beautiful girlfriend, so who won? Me. Five years ago I met my girlfriend Kim Griffin and my life changed. Finally I had a woman who could drive as fast as me, drink as much as me, dive like me and has a fine right hook. We work together now as a team and it's perfect.

"As I said I'm not seeking fame, but maybe it'll find me again."

Above Jaime's bed he has a poster that says each and every day is a new adventure and, he says, that's how he lives his life.

"It's not a contest because if you had a contest every day you'd soon get fed up with it, but I see myself as a modern adventurer. I want to go back to Vietnam to photograph the Mekong Delta and new areas that have only just been opened up where the Chinese haven't eaten up everything of value from the sea bed. I've photographed a new species of crab that nobody had seen before, but to get it verified I would have to take it out of the water, put it in formaldehyde and send it to America.

"I'm sorry, but I won't do that. They can have all the photos they want but I'm not killing it. You have to win the right way and be as eco-friendly as possible. The picture always comes first, but you have to be responsible.

"Some photographers will do anything to get the picture. Some of the biggest names have been known to take something out of the water, put it in a fish tank, take it back in the sea, photograph it then kill it so nobody else can photograph it. I would never do that."

Jaime's happy with his lot. He says he has never had a "proper" job and never wants one. He has partied with the best of them ("I don't know why, but I've always had model girlfriends - just lucky I suppose").

He speaks five languages ("including Arabic which is a product of being dragged up in Saudi as a kid").

He reviews diving equipment, ("Some magazines have buried pieces I have written because they will upset advertisers but I refuse to write anything but the truth, especially when it could put people's lives at risk").

He has organised diving and photography trips to exotic locations for fellow enthusiasts. He loves fast cars and is even considering a return to music, ("I thought I would be out of date by now, but the other DJs haven't even caught up with me yet and I've been out of the game for years so if there's anyone who wants a damned good party DJ, I might be interested").

But if you can get behind the unashamed self-promotion for just a moment, you'll find another side to Jaime Burns.

Hidden shallows? Maybe, but even Jaime's unbroken stream of consciousness wavers slightly when talking about Jordan, the son he hasn't seen for 10 years.

"His mother and I were together, but we split up. I got with someone else and then she turns up three months later and announces she's pregnant. Well, I didn't want to know and did what I always do which is to run away from responsibility whenever possible.

"She put 'father unknown' on the birth certificate to get back at me, which is fine as it hasn't cost me a penny. I'd like to see him and I know that one day he'll turn up.

"I could have gone for it when he was younger, but why confuse a young boy with 'I'm your dad, but your mother lives with this man'? It's different now he's 10, but still maybe not right. At 16 or 18 it'll be right.

"I don't want to colour his image of who his father is until he can handle it, but it would be nice to see him."