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Well, you should be creating thumbnails of each image(or your gallery script should make them for you). This way the page load is significantly faster. As far as usability, users will much rather see the image gallery on the same page as the article is on. I takes a step out of their research process and thats ultimately the goal.

Thanks Dr. Peter :). I have implemented your suggestions, so will see if I get any better rankings. Meanwhile, I will continue link building effort for the site!