Is there anyway to recover photos from an old phone in apples possession

I have been through about 4 Iphones in the last year and a half, and luckily I have lucked out with the 3 month warranty on all of them. But something tragic has come up and one of my best friends passed away. Only thing is I had all the old pictures on my old phone which apple now has. Is there anyway that they would still have the phone(s) and that I can recover the photos from?

Thank you, it would be a lot of help if someone knew this answer.