Simplest way for PyQT Threading

You should use the built in QThread provided by Qt. You can place your file monitoring code inside a worker class that inherits from QObject so that it can use the Qt Signal/Slot system to pass messages between threads.

class FileMonitor(QObject):

    image_signal = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str)

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot()
    def monitor_images(self):
        # I'm guessing this is an infinite while loop that monitors files
        while True:
            if file_has_changed:
                self.image_signal.emit('/path/to/image/file.jpg')


class MyWidget(QtGui.QWidget):

    def __init__(self, ...)
        ...
        self.file_monitor = FileMonitor()
        self.thread = QtCore.QThread(self)
        self.file_monitor.image_signal.connect(self.image_callback)
        self.file_monitor.moveToThread(self.thread)
        self.thread.started.connect(self.file_monitor.monitor_images)
        self.thread.start()

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
    def image_callback(self, filepath):
        pixmap = QtGui.QPixmap(filepath)
        ...