building flickr style photo sets (non-galleryish)

Hi,

I'm trying to create flickr.com styled photo sets, where images are not kept in galleries/albums but just as a way of organizing photos. So far i've created a new content-type "photoset" and added a field "imageset" with a field-type of "node reference: select list" (which didn't display anything) and then with a "view reference". Using views reference actually took me somewhere in the right direction - with a view that pulls images from the current users photos.

Right now I can create a set and select images inside a select-list (lol : it displays 3/4 fields from the referenced view in 3 cols, node title, time ago, and number of comments, but not thumbnail because its a text list), however when viewing the set only node titles(as links) appear. Whereas I need to display thumbnails plus other node data. I tried theming the content-type, but I only got some of the referenced views variables in the array like:

$node->field_imageset (array)
  $node->field_imageset[0] (array)
    $node->field_imageset[0]['nid']
      116 
    $node->field_imageset[0]['view']
      <a href="/photos/grah/116">PICT1156.jpg</a> 
  $node->field_imageset[1] (array)
    $node->field_imageset[1]['nid']
      115 
    $node->field_imageset[1]['view']
      <a href="/photos/grah/115">PICT1152.jpg</a> 

etc..

I can't seem to get the actual data being passed from the view, only the nid and a node title(as link).

It seems like the views data is getting broken down in the select list for the field when adding images to a set. I don't know how to explain what's happening.

I would really like to get away from the select list but I would need a better way to define a new field-type "Image(s)". Is there a way around this? Or should I re-approach from another angle?

Thanks.