Looks like the image was taken through glass, such as a window, the 3 stripes on the left are nearly perfect and identical to each other... I think those are reflections of something behind the photographer.
If we can assume that your buddy was taking a picture of something in the sky then I would say that I agree with the person above who said that the clouds are vapor trails from aircraft on a high altitude airway, and they are being blown off the center by the wind aloft... This explains the expansion and dispersion of the trails further to the right.
Those three on the left are artifacts of something though, those three are not in the sky.