Lost everything

Please can somebody help me? Today I updated my 4s to iOS 6.1 and when the update finished and went to restart my phone went into recovery mode. Unfortunately and naively, I haven't done a back up since I first purchased the phone due to a broken laptop therefore I had to restore my phone to factory settings through a neighbours laptop. I had also switched iCloud off as my memory exceeded the standard 5gb. I resigned myself to the fact that I had lost pictures and videos of my family that possibly can't be replaced however I have noticed that my contacts and contact pictures still remain on my phone, does anybody know how this is possible and if there's any way u can retrieve the pictures and videos that I've lost?

Thanks

Claire