hide lightbox thumbnails, launch gallery via link

Hello,

I am working on a wordpress site where the client wants a lightbox gallery, but without thumbnails visible on the page. He would like the first image in the gallery to be launched via a link, and then the user would click through the images using the lightbox forward and back buttons. I installed lightbox for native wp gallery plugin, but I need some help in hiding the thumbnails and creating the link that would essentially do the same thing as clicking the first thumbnail in the gallery. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Colin