Recover photos from 4s stuck in recovery mode?

[RJisOK]

Novice needs help, please. I have an iPhone 4s that I hooked up to my desktop for the first time after owning it for 4 months because the memory was running out of room and I wanted to back up my photos. The computer asked if I wanted to update the software, I said yes, and now my phone is bricked, stuck in recovery mode. I can get it working again, but it will wipe everything clean, including ~700 photos (I have two little kids, so yes, I took that many pics of mostly them in 4 months, too much, but anyway...). I set up iCloud just 6 weeks ago and I did not know that photos taken prior to that time would not automatically move to the cloud. Thus, 400 or so pics are potentially lost. The million dollar question is, of course, how can I restore/retrieve these pics? Thank you for your time.