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This one is APFS. (Don't use case-sensitive unless you have to!) Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted.

You didn't describe what method you are using to back up to an external drive. Are you backing up your Photos library by copying and pasting it? Are you coping the photos and attempting to paste or drag them into a Photos library on your external drive? Are you backing up to a Finder folder? Are you using the Image Capture app to transfer the photos to your external drive?

This could be a hard drive thing. How is your external hard drive formatted? To get full functionality (and to avoid damaging the Photos Library) an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. When you select your external drive and type command-I for information, you can see the Format:

So, as Richard Taylor said, it may be that your external hard drive is not formatted properly, or perhaps does not have the appropriate settings and permissions.

This could be a hard drive thing. How is your external hard drive formatted? To get full functionality (and to avoid damaging the Photos Library) an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. When you select your external drive and type command-I for information, you can see the Format:

2 months ago I was able to backup my photos onto an external hard drive. I tried backing it up again recently and was hit with an Image Capture Error 9934. I tried restarting both my Macbook and iPhone but nothing worked. Any advice?

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This one is APFS. (Don't use case-sensitive unless you have to!) Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted.