Here is something I had done a while ago... Not sure if it's any help though. It's probably far from a good solution. I don't even remember if all the libraries I've imported are all needed :

Code:
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.awt.Image;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;

public class Picture extends Panel
{
	public void createPicture(String fileName)
	{
		JLabel label = new JLabel();
		
		try
		{
			File fImage = new File(fileName);
			if (fImage.exists() == false)
			{
				fImage = new File("noimage.jpg");
			}
			Image image = ImageIO.read(fImage);
			
			label = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(image));
		}
		catch (IOException e)
		{
			System.out.println("No image");
		}
		
		this.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		this.add(label,BorderLayout.CENTER);
	}
	public Picture(String fileName)
	{
		createPicture(fileName);
	}
}