Simple Gallery Theme

Hi – I am fairly new to wordpress, we have customized a couple of basic blog sites, but am now looking to produce a very basic ‘gallery’ theme. I have a limited but basic grasp of html / css.

Basic elements to include are:
– Navigational list down left hand side
– Thumbnail images to appear as 3 rows, 3 columns
– Ability to click on thumbnail for expanded image – perhaps using Lightbox?

I would want to achieve something similar to this:

http://www.jimmcbride.co.uk/?page_id=3

Any advice or pointers towards a simple theme to customize would be much appreciated.