how can I get my pictures off of iphoto

Photos replaced iPhoto years ago. Launch Photos with the option key held down. From the resulting dialog choose your iPhoto Library. Photos will use your iPhoto media to create a new Photos library. Your iPhoto Library will not be changed.

Photos for Mac can open your iPhoto Libraries, provided the version of the iPhoto Library is at least iPhoto 8.x.x and the iPhoto Library is on a compatible volume. It must not be on volume used for Time Machine backups, and the volume needs to be locally mounted (no network share). The file system format of the volume needs to be MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS. Where is your iPhoto Library? Which version of iPhoto have you been using?

iPhoto was discontinued more than 4 years ago. It is no longer developed or sold. It was replaced by the more powerful (and free) Photos.app that comes with the OS. You can migrate to that app very simply:

Hold down the option (or alt) key and launch Photos. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and point at your iPhoto Library. It will do the rest.

If you prefer not to use Photos there are several 3rd party apps that you can use. Which to choose depends on the kind of photographer you are and your budget.

No reason to apologise. It is just a pity, that you did not upgrade to Photos, while you still could run iPhoto and compare the resulting libraries. It would have been easier doing the conversion from iPhoto to Photos on Mojave. Now you will have to recreate some content just from your memory, and cannot look it up in iPhoto.

It can take much longer, depending on the size of your iPhoto Library.

Thank you for the answer. I should have read it before I posted the same question. Sorry.