Meh. If your requirement is a single query, then you need to implement a linked list in the database. This isn't that hard, but it requires that all inserts and deletes update 3 rows vs. just selects doing three queries. This probably is ok. 
CREATE TABLE images (
    id INT
   ,prev_id INT
   ,next_id INT
   ,other_columns_here
);

[download]
Then, to get everything in a single query, you do: 
SELECT * FROM images WHERE ( (id=?) OR (next_id=?) OR (prev_id=?) );

[download]
Not that hard. :-)
My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re^3: Calculating previous/next from database by dragonchild
in thread Calculating previous/next from database by Anonymous Monk

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