Can I make a page based on the themefiles ?

Quick: I want to create a gallerypage that looks like my index.php page.

Full: I thought that by using

<?php get_header(); ?>

Image and stuff

<?php get_footer(); ?>

I would be able to make a new page. But I don’t know where to place the file to make it work, and I don’t really know if it will work.

I tried overwriting the original index.php in my themes-folder, and it works great, but I kinda want the blog to be intact, and have a separate gallerypage.

So, anyone know where I should place it, and how to link to it to make it work ?