Do I understand that you have pictures that you see in Photos, but they don't show their locations--even though you are sure that they have GPS data? We're hearing that this can be some sort of glitch that sometimes happens when a phone has been set to use Face ID to control Hidden and Recently Deleted views.
At Settings>Apps>Photos

Turn OFF the "Use Face ID" switch. Mine is on, because this doesn't seem to affect my 16. This seems to leave Hidden and Recently Deleted unsecured, so you may want to turn "Show Hidden Album" off, as well.
It's possible that you will need to do a forced restart:
Force restart iPhone - Apple Support
This is different from a simple Power Off. I had to continue holding the button down past the "slide to power off" message, and then I released the button only after the Apple Logo appeared indicating a re-start.
See if this works for you. If it does, let us know, and leave feedback here:
Feedback - Photos - Apple