Roland,
One thing you could do is just embed the ribbons with the code generated in a vertical fashion right on the top level page instead of using the thumbnail page.
In other words you could have:
SUBTITLE IMAGES
Pic Ribbon here with lightbox
MORE IMAGES SUBTITLE
Then the second ribbon here with lightbox
And then so on and so on. I once set up my portfolio that way and it came out really good. If I still had it, I would show you but I have switched my design around since while building my new site.
Best regards,
Brian