Hopefully an easy question for you guys

So I'm trying to help a coworker get photos off an an old ipod nano her son has. The only problem for me is that I can't figure out how to actually access the photos. I haven't used apple products in a while (Android and PC. Sorry Apple), but I'm using my girlfriends macbook. From when I remember from last using apple stuff, whenever I plug an ipod in, the ipod should be discovered in finder but also i should be able to access the photos through iPhoto. Neither off those options are available to me. The ipod does work and itunes does want me to sync with the computer. Can someone help me figure out how to get the photos off? Thanks!