Hi Willabong, as I have no idea how you have this iPhone setup I'm a bit mystified by your question. I and the other members I think, will need a few more details to answer your question.
Currently most of us use Apple"s iCloud Photo Library to sync photos wirelessly between our various devices because the old "My Photo Stream" is dead, but let's suppose you're not doing that. Let's suppose you are just connecting your iPhone to your Mac with a USB cable.
Do you have a PIN number that you use to unlock your iPhone? If so then the Mac will probably ask for you to enter that PIN number when you connect your iPhone. Depending on what operating system you are using on both the Mac and the iPhone both may ask you if you "Trust" the other device requiring you to enter the PIN number again.
So, there are lots of new security measures introduced in recent years and to give you an answer to your question we really need a few more details:
What Mac are you using?
What macOS is it running?
What iOS is your iPhone running?
Are all your devices logged into iCloud on the same Apple ID (account)?
How are you connecting your iPhone to your Mac?
And lastly, describe, step by step, what you do when you try to connect your Photos app to the Mac.
There are no silly questions here, fill us in with the above details and we will do our best to answer your questions.