Fragile cutscene
In the first cutscene with Fragile, there are hand prints in the cave. Once they come close to Sam, one of them forms some ice particles (?) on the floor, but I wonder what caused this? His breath?
Also the photograph that drops: was it on his clothes, or was it already there?
Solution 1:
I assume you're talking about chiral crystals. In-game you see them form by destroying BTs, but presumably they get created by BT activity normally. And yes, he's carrying the photograph.