Over the course of a 12-year career in photography, Matt Kent has worked with a who’s who of the musical world.

He has snapped Paul Weller, Florence Welch, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Motorhead and Liam Gallagher, to mention just a few.

But his career started by chance.

In 1998 the then-civil engineer received a shock phone call from one of his idols, Pete Townshend, asking him to create and run The Who’s website.

Thereafter, he toured the world with the band, photographing and videoing them on stage and writing online entries about their gigs.

“I never had any interest in photography before that,” says Matt. “I realised in about 2000 I had an eye for it.

“We were in America on The Who tour and I was using very cheap equipment, but was getting decent pictures that people seemed to like.”

Part of The Who’s legend was born on stage. This was epitomised by Townshend, who was famed for frequently smashing his guitars.

As a result, Matt quips that being a photographer for the band while they were on stage was “a dangerous place to be”.

“I once stood about two feet away from Pete Townshend smashing a guitar,” adds the 59-year-old.

“It was so close to me that I had splinters flying around my face.”

Matt also became accustomed to witnessing this kind of unpredictability away from the microphone.

It was this that contributed to him acrimoniously parting ways with the band in 2006.

“At the time I thought I shouldn’t have met my heroes,” he explains.

“It’s water under the bridge now, but sometimes you couldn’t judge what the mood was going to be like when you were around them.

“It’s very difficult to understand the nature of being a rock star unless you’ve witnessed life on the road.

"They’re pampered and that breeds erratic behaviour.

“Because of this, you have to expect that they won’t behave like normal people.”

He started working as a freelance photographer in 2006, initially offering his services to Paul Weller and Flaming Lips, who he had met while on tour with The Who.

As Matt added to his portfolio, he started emailing numerous acts stating boldly: “I can do better than your current photographer”.

His career continued to gather pace, having pictures published in Rolling Stone, NME, the New York Times and Guardian, and securing jobs with the O2 Arena and Absolute Radio.

Paloma Faith and Florence Welch – who would “always look like she was in a Romanticist’s painting” – were some of Matt’s favourite stars to work with.

“There have been some very difficult ones, though,” he continues. “While I was doing the backstage photography for the O2 Arena, a few American rappers were very difficult to deal with.

“They wouldn’t turn up to the shoots as arranged and made you wait around for hours – it was all very diva-like.”

Matt also found that Lemmy from Motorhead had a particular disdain for photographers.

The band would perform in "darkness" while agency snappers were permitted to be stageside and turn the lights on and wave them goodbye as they left.

Matt, who lives in Herne Bay, is now readying himself for the opening of an exhibition of his work at Beach Creative - a gallery in his home town.

Displaying pictures of the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Who, the Rolling Stones and Liam Gallagher, he hopes it will give the musicians a “human face”.

“It’s not like looking at a washed-out photo of a band in the Guardian,” he explains.

“It’s time that I did something with these photographs; it’s time I put them on show.”

The one-week exhibition will open on Monday, August 27.