Why can't I download photos onto my computer?

My phone is plugged into my computer and when i go into file explorer, go under apple iphone, internal storage, there's nothing there. Normally there would be some folders that say 'DMC009' or something like that which contain all of my pictures that are on my phone but there's nothing there. When I try to download them straight through the photos app on my computer (the one that automatically launches when i plug my phone into my computer), it's saying that there's no device detected. What should I do? (No i will not email all my photos to myself. I've done that once in the past but then i have to unzip and extract every single file and my email tends to get deactivated for a day because sending and downloading so many pictures is suspicious)

Added (1). My computer is a PC laptop, my phone is an iPhone 7 and when I plug my phone into my computer, I have already hit the 'trust computer' notification that comes up on my phone.

Court Order. Easy with the unzipping. Remember what the judge told you.

Depends on which "my computer" and what operating system runs it. If a Windows machine, you might need a software tool or program to read the files on an iPhone.

When you plug the phone in it needs to be unlocked and then when a message comes up on the phone you need to answer yes to "trust this computer" or something like that.

Try restarting the phone & see if that helps.

Could also look into using photo sites/services like Google Photos so you could download them to your computer.

Also, in the case of emailing pictures to yourself with an iPhone, they are sent as individual pictures not a ZIP & even if it was sent as one that wouldn't mean it would only contain 1 file per ZIP file.