Buffered Image Read File

I am trying to read an image I have in the location of my project, So I do this:

When I read it in the try/catch like: BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(new file(""));

And try to access it after the try/catch, it does not know that image exists, so I need to declare it as a global variable for that class first, and then it works.

public class Gui extends JFrame
{
private BufferedImage image1;
public Gui() {
super("MyApp");
setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
setLocationRelativeTo(null);
setVisible(true);
initUI();
 
[Code] ....