Recover photos from iPad 2 that's stuck in recovery mode (no backup)

My iPad 2 is stuck in recovery mode (genius bar can't get it out). This happened while I was on vacation and unfortunately some of the videos and photos are not backed up/synced. Before I "restore" through itunes (and erase everything), is there any way to rescue the photos and videos?  I've googled third party software and it doesn't look like anything will let you back up your data while the device is in recovery mode. 
If I can't rescue anything while the device is in recovery mode, does anyone know if there's a way to retrieve photos from the device directly (not through itunes or icloud) *after* a "restore" (which has wiped the device)?  I don't care about anything else on it and I don't care if it has to be put on another device (computer, thumbdrive, etc).  The guy at the genius bar said you can't, but I see there are software programs (unfamiliar to me) that promise to do that.  I don't know if they really work, though.  I wish I understood whether the "restore" process really has the ability to permanently delete photos on the device or whether the photos remain there, but are inaccessible.
I know it's a longshot and it's my own fault for not backing up, but before I do anything irreversible I want to be sure I've exhausted the possibilities.  I'm willing to pay for a program/service to retrieve the photos but I am not sure if there's anything out there that will work.
Thanks in advance for anyone's help. 

No doubt this is too late for you, but it might help others.  My 2 1/2 year old iPad 2 running iOS 7.1.1 (I believe) just started having the same problem last night. Til now, it's been running fine with iOS 7, though the battery life seems to be shorter than with iOS 6 & before.  Right now, the iPad just keeps recycling through the startup procedure, white apple icon on black screen, then black screen, repeated indefinitely. Tried everything.  Google searches gave me this thread/result, that I have to go through the recovery process, and thereby lose all my unsaved photos (my most recent backup is a month old), and others that say I might be able to recover files if I connect to a Windows machine.  But I only have Macs.   I was about to do the hard reset, recovery procedure, when it occurred to me to just open iPhoto & see if it recognized the iPad.  It did--even though iTunes doesn't-- it showed me all of the photos, including the one's between my last iPad backup and now, AND I was able to successfully download all of the photos.  YMMV, but this worked for me.

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