How to recover photos from an old iPhone without iCloud backup?

If these photos were deleted, then they went to the Recently Deleted album. Anything in your Recently Deleted album stays there for 30 days. After 30 days, it's permanently deleted and you can't get it back.

How to recover deleted photos on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro - Apple Support

The situation here is not clear.

• Were the photos on that phone deleted?
• Do you have access to that old phone?
• Can you open the Photo app and see the photos?

Please let us know exactly what the situation is. Then we can better advise you. But bottom line ... if the photos were deleted more than 30 days ago, or if you cannot access the photos on that old phone, then you will not be able to retrieve them, especially since they were not backed up to the iCloud.

You didn't give us much detail. You can see this:

        If you're missing photos or videos in the Photos app

Basically the above says to look in Recently Deleted and in Hidden. Be sure to check your Library thoroughly. You can use the search field with the date or location—the pictures may not be where you expect, as dates may have changed. And remember, you can sort the Library by date captured or by date added. Also, your Library view now has filters, and you may not have your filter set to "All Items.”

Unfortunately, if you don't keep your own backups to an external drive, then there really isn't any place else to look. To back up your pictures you can just plug in an external drive, select the pictures, and use Share>Save to Files. Alternatively, you can backup to a computer:

Transfer photos and videos from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac or PC

If you haven't done one of those backups, then your remaining pictures continue to be in peril. 

babs529 wrote: This is very unfortunate that Apple don't have access to deleted photos in backup server even if customers have to be charged for such retrievers no matter how long the years may be. I reckon such should be looked into as part of customer feedback towards meeting customers satisfaction.

You can let Apple know, here:

Feedback - Photos - Apple