Help me? Especially technology peeps?

So let me just sum it up, my phone has been going through some problems and I had no connect to iTunes which resulted in me having to restart my phone. I restored my data from iCloud but my last back up was 2016. Meaning I've lost everything, I'm distraught, I've lost all my memories. I had some amazing pictures of my family, myself and my life. Memories I cherish and they were all captured in pictures. It means so so much to me, I'm unable to believe it. So is there any way I can get these pictures back? They can't be completely gone?

Didn't you have an SD card inside of your phone? Okay well I'm not trying to be mean here but I'm a computer man and this is why I refuse to own something that's made by Apple or iPhone. If you had a normal Android phone and you were signed in to Google and the Google cloud like you were supposed to be it would have been done all for you and even if the phone totally dies everything you have comes back from the grave or you can view it and download it on your Google cloud. I wish I could give you some hope but if it's not in your iCloud and it's not on your SD card it's gone.

Was it a full factory reset?

Damn, there's no way of retrieving it?

That's why backups are critical! Unfortunately, you learned the hard way. There are data recovery services where you can send your phone/device and they can attempt to recover your data. However, this works best as soon as you factory reset your phone. And even then, there's no guarantee that it will work. They're also pretty pricey.

Unfortunately, there's really nothing you can do to recover your data.

Did you ever consider using an SD card, and then transferring whatever was on an SD card to a flash drive?

I use an SD card, and I put it in my cell phone. I transfer whatever is on my SD card to my flash drive, but before I transfer my files to my flash drive, I plug my flash drive in my computer. I can also transfer my files to an external hard drive.

Sometimes I use two flash drives to make the same backup just in case something bad happens to one of my flash drives.

Always think first before doing something. Why did you factory reset if you still have unbacked data?

Sorry love, you've lost everything. Learn how to properly enable the iCloud backup of the phone. It's completely automated and stuff like this will never happen.

Learn how to properly back up your phone from now on.

Good to know the all knowing Dave is on the trail of a solution for ya.