Cannot access photos on iPhone using PC

All I want to do is to backup the photos on my iPhone 12 mini to my PC and hard drives. I connect my phone to my PC and answer the question "Allow this device to access photos and videos?'' as "Allow" but the folder on my PC has the message "This folder is empty." I tried doing this with multiple PCs and I get the same result every single time. I restarted all the devices including my iPhone but still the same problem. All these devices are up-to-date and I am using an original iPhone cable. I am really getting extremely frustrated. And no, I don't want to use iTunes. I just want to be able to do the most simple thing, to copy and paste photos & videos from my phone to my PC.