I have 8 articles with sigpro plugin displaying 1 image and when clicked display a slide show.
All 8 articles with one image each, show in category blog page.
It takes 30 seconds or more for that page to load.
Are the images for all 8 slideshows loaded at that same time the page loads or only when individual slideshows are called for.
Any help would be greatly appreciated..

Did you enable your cache?

In sigpro thumbnail cache is set to 120
Joomla global settings is now set to ON    File  15min
Browser cache is on.

Could you provide us with a link to your gallery page please?

Yes here is the url of the page giving problems.

venicecc.larrymu.net/index.php/mworks/galleries

It is a joomla 1.6 category blog menu item with 9 articles displaying.
On the left is a module with a Category list displaying a link to the articles.
This page takes 20 to 30 seconds to load for the first time.  Are the slideshow for each article loaded at the page load or only when called for when they click on the single image?
The slide shows load almost instantaneously when clicked.

It seems to load fast enough...

It loaded very fast for me as well.
Most of the time it takes 20 to 30 seconds.
When you have only on image showing in the article is there a way to turn off the loading of the other images in the slideshow until it is called for instead of all of the slideshows loading at the start of at
the page?

No, I am afraid not.