want some advice on modifying album.tpl to highlight one photo

I'm working on a site in Gallery 2.1.2 that is in development at http://joshuahellerrarebooks.managebest.net/artistsbooks/

I've got several sub-albums, as you can see, that feature multiple photos of a single book for sale. I'd like to create a theme with an album.tpl file that allows me to take the first photo, and place it above the description text, and then take any following photos and place them after the description text. So, the layout should be:

first photo | text description | rest of the photos

Here's my "before" photo of what the sub-album looks like now:

[img]http://gallery.menalto.com/files/gallery_before_0.jpg[/img]

And here's my "after" shot of what I'd like it to look (more) like:

[img]http://gallery.menalto.com/files/gallery_after_0.jpg[/img]

Any advice? Many thanks!

-Sara,