Totally new to the whole website creation thingy, but getting there. Have been desperately trying to insert title element into my modification of the default theme. Can someone please tell me where to insert the html for the title element. (at wits end, please....)
Would it be directly into my theme or into a php section of my theme?
Any help hugely appreciated.

oh, and also do I have to have a gallery page or can I just have pages with an album?

I suggest you take a little time to learn how a CMS like Zenphoto works. There is no "one" place to instert the title - I assume you mean the element in the - as that is done dynamically based on the content shown (album, image etc). A Zenphoto theme consists of several theme page.

If you did already modify the default theme you really could not miss the head section...
Anyway if you haven't already you really should read the theming tutorial, although that is not really for real beginners...