welcome to the forum @driftwood
depending on your knowledge there might be easier applications to start self-hosting. please review 101: Self-hosting information for beginners.
Nextcloud is rather complicated application and requires deeper understanding of many technologies (but this applies to most “not trivial” applications). It is perfectly suited for file management but for pictures you likely find better alternatives like photoprism (we had discussions about this - use search). same applies for blog and media - better use specialized tools like Plex, Jellyfin, Wordpress etc. Depending on your goal regarding mail the answer vary between: yes it works (webclient) and don’t do this at home (self-hosting mail server).