If you keep them on your phone as well, obviously they are going to eat space pretty quickly, unless of course you are rocking the 128. Unfortunately I only have the 32 so once I snap a pic, off my phone it goes and I send it directly to the cloud.
If you don't have a connection, from what I have been told you are still able to access them. I never tried this myself so I can't say for certain, but I have been told this. I am pretty certain you can do it over wi-fi though